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THE 
PUBLIC PROSECUTOR 
: : OF THE TERROR : : 

ANTOINE QUENTIN FOUQUIER-TINVILLE 
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF 
ALPHONSE DUNOYER BY A. W. EVANS 
WITH A PHOTOGRAVURE FRONTISPIECE 
AND FOURTEEN OTHER ILLUSTRATIONS 



NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
PUBLISHERS ^ ^ MCMXIII 






S vafx.7^ 



LONDON AND NORWICH PRES?, LIMITED, LONDON AND NORWICH 



INTRODUCTION 

IN the famous oval room of the Soubise Palace, where, 
amid the gilded garlands of foliage and flowers, the 
eighteenth-century painter, Charles Natoire, grouped 
the supple and youthful figures which he had borrowed 
from the legend of Cupid and Psyche, there is a melancholy 
glass case which to-day contains the will of Louis XVI. 
and the last letter of Marie Antoinette. 

A note it is, rather than a letter. Two yellow, rumpled, 
ink-stained sheets on which the Queen of France, con- 
demned to death, expressed her last thoughts and addressed 
her final recommendations to her sister-in-law, Madame 
Elisabeth. 

The note was written at the conclusion of that terrible 
final appearance before the Revolutionary Tribunal. It is 
dated, " This i6th of October, at half -past four in the 
morning." Seven and a half hours before the execution ! 

" It is to you, my sister, that I am writing for the last 
time. I have just been condemned, not to a shameful 
death, that is only for criminals, but to join your brother. 
Innocent as he, I hope to show the same firmness in these 
last moments. I am as calm as one whose conscience has no 
reproach ; I feel profound regret at leaving my poor children, 
you know that I only existed for them and for you, my good 
and tender sister. In what a position do I leave you who 
in your affection have sacrificed everything to be with us ! 
I have learned from the speech for the defence in the trial 
that my daughter has been separated from you. Alas ! 
poor child, I dare not write to her, she would not receive my 
letter ; I do not even know if this will reach you. Receive 
for them both this my blessing ; I hope that one day, when 
they are bigger, they will be re-united with you, and enjoy 
to the full your tender care ; let them both think of what I 



viii INTRODUCTION 

have not ceased to inspire in them, that the principles and 
exact execution of one's duties are the fundamental basis 
of life, that their friendship and mutual confidence will 
cause its happiness. Let my daughter feel that at her 
age she ought always to help her brother by the counsels 
that her greater experience and affection inspire her with ; let 
my son, on his side, render to his sister ever}'- care, every 
service that affection can inspire ; lastly, let both feel that 
in whatever position they may find themselves, they will 
be truly happy only by their union ; let them take example 
from us. How much consolation has our friendship brought 
us in our misfortunes ! Happiness is doubly enjoyed when one 
can share it with a friend ; and where is a more tender or 
devoted friend to be found than in one's own family ? Let 
my son never forget his father's last words which I repeat 
to him expressly ; let him never seek to avenge our death. 

" I have to speak to you of something very painful to me. 
I know how much trouble this child must have caused you. 
Forgive him, dear sister ; think of his age and of how easy 
it is to make a child say what one likes, and even what he 
does not understand. A day will come, I hope, when he will 
better realise the value of your goodness and tenderness 
towards both. It remains for me to confide my last thoughts 
to you. I should have liked to write them to you from 
the beginning of my trial, but, besides the fact that I was 
not allowed to write, its course has been so rapid that I 
really should not have had the time. 

" I die in the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman religion, 
in that of my fathers, in that in which I have been brought 
up and always professed ; having no spiritual consolations 
to expect, not knowing if there are priests of that religion here ; 
and if there were, the position in which I am would expose 
them too much if once they entered here. I sincerely ask 
God's pardon for all the faults I may have committed since 
I came into being ; I hope that in His goodness He will 
hear my last prayers as well as those that I have long made 
that He will receive mj;' soul in His mercy and goodness. I 
ask pardon from all whom I know, and especially from you, 
my sister, for all the trouble that, without wishing it, I may 
have caused them. I pardon all my enemies for the evil 
they have done me. I here say adieu to my aunts and to 



INTRODUCTION ix 

all my brothers and sisters. I once had friends : the idea 
of being separated from them and their sufferings for ever is 
one of the greatest regrets that I take with me in dying ; 
let them know at least that to my last moment I have 
thought of them. 

" Adieu, my good and tender sister ; may this letter 
reach you ! Think always of me. I embrace you with all 
my heart as well as those poor dear children. Oh ! God ! 
how heart-rending it is to leave them for ever ! Adieu ! 
Adieu ! I am going to occupy myself with nothing more 
except my spiritual duties. As I am not free in my actions, 
perhaps they will bring me a priest^ ; but I here protest 
that I shall not say a word and shall treat him as an absolute 
stranger." 

The Queen has not signed this note, which is entirely 
written in her own hand. But the last page bears the five 
following signatures. — A. Q. Fouquier, Lecointre, Legot, 
Guffroy, and Massieu. 

How is this to be explained ? 

The first is the signature of Antoine Quentin Fouquier- 
Tinville, Public Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal 
of Paris ; the other four are those of the members of the 
National Convention, charged with the verification of the 
ex-Public Prosecutor's papers when, after Robespierre's 
fall, that magistrate was ordered to be indicted and placed 
on trial in his turn. 

The gaoler of the Conciergerie had taken possession of 
the Queen's last letter ; he had handed it over to Fouquier- 
Tinville. Marie Antoinette's presentiment did not deceive 
her when she wrote : " Alas ! poor child, I dare not write 
to her, she would not receive my letter ; I do not even know 
if this will reach you." " May this letter reach you ! " she 
also wrote. Those pages never reached their address. The 
Public Prosecutor kept among his papers this moving 
expression of the last prayers of a dead woman. Without 
any regard for the final wishes of a mother whom his Tribunal 
sent to the scaffold, he arranged among his portfolios the note 

' A priest who had taken the oath to the Civil Constitution of 
the Clergy. — Tr. 



X INTRODUCTION 

in which Marie Antoinette breathed forth all the pride of 
her character and all the ardent and simple tenderness of 
her heart. 

That is why to-day, after a hundred and seventeen years 
have passed, those who visit the Princesse de Soubise's 
drawing-room pause, filled with emotion, before the mystery 
of this touching letter, countersigned in the clumsy and 
uncouth handwriting of the famous Public Prosecutor. 
They ask questions. They want to know. And when they 
are given the above explanation, many of them remain 
there, motionless, and ask in low tones and with a sort of 
shiver in their voice : " What was Fouquier-Tinville then ? 
A brute ? A monster ? " 

Fouquier-Tinville does not seem to have had the appear- 
ance of a monster, if we refer to these terms in a note which 
was sent to him by Therese Frangoise de Stainville, Princesse 
de Grimaldi-Monaco, guillotined on the gth of Thermidor in 
the year II., the very day of Robespierre's fall : — 

" Citizen, I ask ji^ou, in the name of humanity, to have 
this packet sent to my children ; you seemed to me to have a 
humane look, and when I saw you I regretted that you were 
not my judge ; perhaps I should not be charging you with 
a last wish if you had been. Heed the request of an unhappy 
mother, who perishes at the age of happiness and who leaves 
children deprived of their only resource ; let them at least 
receive this last evidence of my tenderness, and I shall 
ever owe you gratitude. "^ 

The Princesse de Monaco had declared herself pregnant, 
but soon afterwards she had written to Fouquier : — 

" I warn you, citizen, that I am not with child. I wanted 
to tell you so ; no longer hoping that you will come, I send 
you word. I have not stained my mouth with this lie 
through fear of death, or to avoid it, but to give myself a 
day longer in order to cut off my hair myself and not to yield 
it to be cut by the hand of the executioner. It is the only 
legacy I can leave to my children ; at least it must be 
unstained. Choiseul Stainville Josephe Grimaldi-Monaco, 

* Archives Nationales, W. 121, ist dossier, piece 100. 



INTRODUCTION xi 

a foreign princess dying by the injustice of French 
judges." 1 

The princess's hair was enclosed in a paper containing 
two notes, one addressed to her two daughters, the other to 
their governess. 

' ' My children, this is my hair. I have put off my death for a 
day not out of fear, but because I wished to be able to cut off 
this sad spoil myself in order to give it to you ; I did not 
want it done by the executioner's hand, and I had only this 
means ; I have passed a day more in this agony, but I do 
not complain of it ; I ask that my hair be kept in a phial 
covered with black crape, and locked up throughout the 
year, and that only three or four times in a year you have 
in your room before your eyes what remains of your unhappy 
mother who died loving you, and who regrets life only because 
she cannot be useful to you. I recommend you to your 
grandfather ; if you see him, tell him that I am filled with 
the thought of him, and let him keep you in place of every- 
thing, and you, my children, take care of his old age and 
make him forget his misfortunes." 

To the governess she wrote : — 

" I have already written to you one word and now I 
write another to recommend my children to you ; when you 
receive this I shall be no more, but may my memory cause 
you to take pity on my unfortunate children, for that is the 
only feeling they can then inspire. The ring in which my 
children's names were written, and which you ought to have 
received, is a keepsake that I offer you. It is the only thing 
of which I can dispose ; let Louise know the reason why I 
have postponed my death ; let her not suspect me of 
weakness." 2 

In spite of " the humane look " that the Princesse de 
Monaco found in him, Fouquier-Tinville did not forward 
these affecting notes to the orphans for whom they had 
been written. The Public Prosecutor arranged them among 
the papers of his daily correspondence, where they are pre- 
served in the portfolios of the National Archives. 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 431, dossier 968, piece 7. 

^ Archives Nationales, W. 121, ist dossier, pp. 100 bis and 100 ier. 



xii INTRODUCTION 

A sombre and enigmatical figure is Fouquier-Tinville. 
For a long time his name was in men's memory the symbol 
of the whole past of the Terror, and for a long time to come 
this tragic name will remain the symbol of the " judicial 
assassinations "^ committed by the Tribunal established on 
March lo, 1793. 

Yet in the scales of impartial history, the Public Prosecu- 
tor's responsibility is a little less heavy than that of Presi- 
dent Dumas, President Herman, Judge Coffinhal, Lescot- 
Fleuriot, the Public Prosecutor's deputy, and the jurors. 

Paradoxical as the assertion may appear, Fouquier- 
Tinville displayed sentiments of humanity on rare occasions. 
The others never did. They questioned the accused, and 
their questions were propounded with such a refinement of 
perfidy, with such a hypocritical though seeming regard for 
legality, that the accused felt condemned in advance. It is 
only necessary to read Herman's cross-examination of Marie 
Antoinette and his summing-up in the Queen's trial to form 
an opinion of the worth of that civil-spoken and inexorable 
personage. President at the trial of the Girondins, at those 
of the Due d'Orleans, of Barnave, of Danton and the 
Dantonists, this official saw his zeal rewarded by an excel- 
lent place which, indeed, was no sinecure and involved 
risks. Three days after Danton's execution, Herman suc- 
ceeded Pare ; he was appointed Minister of Justice, being 
replaced in the Presidenc}^ of the Tribunal by Dumas. 

Dumas distinguished himself by his brutality. He is 
said to have been an habitual drunkard. He was continu- 
ally in rivalry with Fouquier-Tinville, who at the time of 
his own trial said, " He was m}^ mortal enem3^" He was 
always armed with two pistols which, when in court, he 
placed on the table before him. He interrupted the accused. 
During the adjournment, he would slip among the jury 
and hold conversations with them.^ He was ferocious, 
aggressive, and ill-tempered. His usual procedure, when an 

1 The phrase is that of Boissy d'Anglas in the Moniteiiy, March 

23. 1795. P- 747. col. 3. 

» Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 63. 




MADAME ROLAND 



INTRODUCTION xiii 

accused person spoke, was to cut him short, and definitely 
refuse him the right to speak. Fouquier opposed him, and 
caused witnesses to be heard in spite of the President. 

After the law of the 22nd of Prairial, we shall see that 
Dumas and Coffinhal contented themselves with asking the 
accused their names and positions, and briefly reminding 
them of the heads of the indictment brought against them. 
When the accused answered, Dumas would exclaim : " We 
were expecting what you are saying. You are priests and 
nobles. That is enough. Let us go on to the next."^ 

When he cross-examined Madame Roland, the sculptor 
Lescot-Fleuriot, Fouquier-Tinville's deputy, propounded 
to the accused long, embarrassing questions. He demanded 
clear, short answers. Then he interrupted the examination, 
burst into a rage, and said : " With such a chatterbox we 
shall never finish. Besides, we are not at the Ministry of 
the Interior^ to indulge in wit." 

When Pache, the Mayor of Paris, being compromised in 
the case of Hebert and the Hebertists, was imprisoned, Lescot- 
Fleuriot took his place and became one of Robespierre's 
firmest supporters until the decisive night between the 9th 
and loth of Thermidor. 

When sitting as President at the trial of the elder LoizeroUes, 
the old man who was arraigned before the Tribunal when it 
was his son who had been summoned to appear, Coffinhal, 
on the 8th of Thermidor, calmly allowed the one to be con- 
demned for the other. He washed his hands of the matter. 
Some months later, Fouquier-Tinville could justly say : 
" That omission and that crime, if they really exist, are 
personal to Cofiinhal and to the registrar's clerk who had 
charge of the case." It was Cofhnhal who, revising and 
correcting the list of accused in the " batch " ^ among which 
the poets Roucher and Andre Chenier appeared on the 7th 
of Thermidor, added these words in the margin facing the 

^ Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 63. 
' Roland had been Minister of the Interior. — Tr. 
" FoiirnSe, the term generally applied to a number of prisoners 
tried and executed together. — Tr. 



xiv INTRODUCTION 

name of Louis Sers, " captain of infantry in command at 
Chambarnagot." Chambarnagot for Chandernagor !^ Some 
important depositions at Fouquier-Tinville's trial seem to 
attribute to Coffinhal, " that brutality which was natural to 
him," the execution of women who were with child. - 

As for the motley troop of jurors, each of them had his 
proper share, his terrible share, in the hecatombs of Prairial 
and of Messidor. What about their consciences ? Fouquier- 
Tinville liked to style some of them, " ;«_v solid men." These 
solid men had not, on the whole, been more criminal than 
the others. They liked to utter big words which, for 
the most part, they did not understand — liberty, equality, 
fraternity, unity, indivisibility, or death. They were 
proud and happy to speak and write these words, to 
see them printed on fine engraved paper. They were 
playing an overwhelming part, and thought it agreeable 
and right to be paid eighteen livres a day for playing that 
part. Several among them were both members of the Popular 
Commissions and jurors of the Tribunal of the Terror. 

But they themselves experienced the terror they inspired. 
Veritable tyrants, each in his own Section, in his own 
Commission, in his own street, at the Tribunal they feared 
being denounced by men more tyrannous than themselves, 
and this is why they became ferocious and implacable. 
They played the part of informers from fear of being accused 
in that same part. For some of them, it was enough to see 
the prisoners in order to decide on their verdicts. The mere 
inspection of a face determined them to vote for death. 
One of them said : " Were I the Public Prosecutor, I would 
have the condemned bled before their execution so as to 
weaken their courageous bearing." Another publicly boasted 
of " never having voted except for death when it was a case 
of trying priests or nobles, for they were all food for the 
guillotine. "3 Another having asked permission to address the 

' Archives Nationales, W. 431, No. 969. 
- Buchcz and Roux, XXXV., p. 3. 

■•' Aubry, the tailor. Archives Nationales, W. 500. 3rd dossier, 
P- 58. 



INTRODUCTION xv 

court, said : " Is it not enough to show you are an aristocrat, 
that you have served a noble ? " ^ This man said to his 
colleagues, just after they rose from a sitting : " We have 
only taken two hours and a half this time, because we had 
only to refer to the letter that was beside the name." An- 
other stated that " when there was no crime, it was necessary 
to imagine one." Some of them could neither read nor 
write. Others, on the contrary, men of letters or of fashion, 
or artists, voted for death with a sort of bored carelessness, 
a mocking air — and to put an end to the matter. 

It ought to be said that nothing is less just than to attri- 
bute entire responsibility to Fouquier-Tinville for the 
judicial crimes committed by the Tribunal established on 
March lo, 1793, an exceptional, " provisional " Tribunal, a 
sort of " military justice applied by civil judges." It was 
not he who cross-examined ; it was not he who voted for 
death. He was neither judge nor juror. ^ 

A servant of the law, he took care to keep within the bounds 
of the law. What he seemed essentially to desire, ' ' entrusted 
as he was for eighteen months with the painful duty of seeking 
out crime and prosecuting it," was to discover the guilty ; 
and that because his two formidable patrons, the Committee 
of Public Safety and the Committee of General Security, 
exacted it. The men who composed those Committees 
made him " walk " as they wanted. He carried out their 
orders exactly, and in particular the orders of the most violent 
and most sinister among them, Vadier, Voulland, and Amar.^ 

At the Committee meetings, to which he went every 
evening, and where he often remained until an advanced 
hour of the night, he waited for the lists of persons to be 
charged, and he handed them over to others. He was exact, 
and fulfilled precisely the intentions and resolutions of the two 

1 This juror was Didier. Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier 

p. 58- 

^ He said so in reply to Cambon at his cross-examination on the 9th 
of Germinal in the year III. (Buchez and Roux XXXIV., p. 329.) 

^ Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 46. The witness 
Advenier saw Voulland, Vadier, and Amar go fairly often to 
Fouquier's room and lock themselves in with him "carefully." 



xvi INTRODUCTION 

Committees. He remembered this when, torn from his 
power, imprisoned, and ready, in his turn, to appear before 
his judges, he wrote, on the 19th of Thermidor : " If it is 
a crime to have given effect to the resolutions of the 
Committees of Pubhc Safety and of General Security, I 
confess that I am guilty ; I should have been guilty if I did 
not execute them. What then ought I to have done ? " 
In the same manner, on the 14th of Thermidor, addressing 
Louis (of the Bas-Rhin) and Moyse Bayle, he wrote: "My 
defence is limited to a recital of the events that took place 
between the Committees and myself. ... Is there a 
more frightful position than mine, after having spent days 
and nights in the public service ? " He wrote in one of the 
memorials for his defence : " No appeals of any sort whatever 
could have stopped me ; the execution of the laws that 
emanated from the Convention, justice, and humanity — 
these have been my rule of conduct." He also wrote this to 
Merlin (of Douai) : " It is a slanderous wound which time 
will heal. I repeat it. My crime is that I have been the 
instrument of too severe laws, and that it was not in my 
power not to execute them ; hence hatred and resentment." 

He is the " executor of the laws." He is the axe and 
rods ; he is the Revolutionary bludgeon. The laws often 
change. A struggle for power, an uninterrupted pitiless 
struggle, was entered upon by political parties. The con- 
queror slew the conquered, and was himself then conquered 
and killed. It was the business of the Revolutionary 
Tribunal and its Public Prosecutor to perform this task. 

It was thus that Fouquier-Tinville drew up in succession 
indictments against Marie Antoinette, the Girondins, 
Olympe de Gouges, Madame du Barry, Hebert and the 
Hebertists, Danton and the Dantonists, the alleged con- 
spiracy in the prisons, etc., etc., until the day when he 
saw himself obliged to plead in court against his friends, 
Lescot-Fleuriot and others. 

The study of the part played by Fouquier-Tinville will 
be the purpose of the first part of this book. We have 
entitled it " The Public Prosecutor." The trials have been 



INTRODUCTION xvii 

studied by the historians of the Revolutionary Tribunal, 
MM. Campardon, Wallon, and Lenotre, and we do not flatter 
ourselves that this book contains anything new in this respect. 
But it seemed to us useful and interesting to undertake it 
for the better understanding of the second part of the book, 
entitled " The Prisoner." In this latter portion we have 
applied ourselves to a minute re-examination of Fouquier- 
Tinville's trial. 

It is by making this slow and minute re-examination that 
we best understand the sort of man this tragic Fouquier- 
Tinville was. In so far as he was Public Prosecutor, he 
appears to us clearly as a public official, bent on keeping his 
place and the handsome salary it represented, at the price of 
every form of servility, even the basest, most criminal, and 
most dishonourable. Ordered to be placed on trial by 
the National Convention some moments after having been 
nominated in the same Assembly as Public Prosecutor for 
a fresh period, Fouquier-Tinville, a prisoner, faUen, hemmed 
in, deserted, scoffed at, defended himself with such argu- 
mentative vigour, such presence of mind, in a word, such 
talent ; he demonstrated with such skill that he was the 
scapegoat for others whose exact and untiring agent he 
had been ; he explained so completely the wheels of the 
blood-stained machine of which he himself had been one 
of the wheels that moved most easily ; he challenged the 
evidence so audaciously and coolly, especially that of his 
mortal enemies, the clerks in the registry, that, in spite of his 
horrible activity, his case became curious and extremely 
interesting. It was that of a former procurator, a former 
advocate, firmly bound to procedure, a former lawyer 
whose brain had been misshapen and his reason led astray 
through the abuse of chicanery, and who, needy and the 
father of a family, seeking a situation, fell into the midst of 
the Revolution, was taken seriously, took himself seriously, 
and into whose hands, companions, as unconscious as he of 
the responsibility of their acts, placed the machine for 
judging others. The reader will see, in the first part of this 
study, what effect such a machine can produce, and what 



xviii INTRODUCTION 

in such hands it did produce both before and after the 22nd 
of Prairial. 

And now, let us be pardoned if, in writing the history " of 
those rigorous times " — to use the words of a contemporary, 
the poet Vigee — we have not thought it our duty to give 
details of what befell the family of him who was guillotined 
in the month of Floreal. His family is not responsible for 
his judicial crimes. Under what pretext and by what right 
should we question, in their eternal peace, the piteous and 
innocent ashes of those whom he loved and who loved him ? 
As PubUc Prosecutor of the Terror, Antoine Quentin Fou- 
quier-TinviUe is on trial at the bar of History. It is on this 
ground that he interests us, and on this ground that we mean 
to study him, not without having always in mind the cynical 
saying of Carrier, the pro-consul of Nantes, when in his turn 
brought to trial, he exclaimed : ' ' Everything here is guilty, 
down to the President's bell ! " 

A. D. 



CONTENTS 

PART I 

CHAPTER I 

fouquier-tinville's beginnings 

?AG£ 

The Ck)ininune against the Legislative Assembly — Robe- 
spierre's speech — Required, " a court of popular justice " 
— ^The Tribunal of August 17th, 1792 — Fouquier-Tinville, 
third director of the jury d' accusation — Fouquier's origins 
— His portrait — His letter to Camille Desmoulins — The 
tribunal of August 17th suppressed — Fouquier ap- 
pointed deputy to the Public Prosecutor of the Criminal 
Tribunal of the Department of Paris — March loth, 1793 
— Serious reverses of the French armies — Danton's 
speech — " Let us be terrible in order to prevent the 
people from being terrible " — Creation of the Tribunal of 
the Terror — Fouquier-Tinville made Public Prosecutor . 29 

CHAPTER n 

" THE DICTATORSHIP OF JUSTICE " 

Powers of the Public Prosecutor — The writs of indictment — 
Fouquier is pitiless towards those who are drunk or 
mad — Growth of the work of the Revolutionary Tribunal 
— It is reinforced by the Convention — On September 5th, 
1793, the Sections come to demand that terror be made 
the order of the day — ^The suspects — The strength of 
the revolutionary government is in " virtue " and 
" terror " — The people are hungry — Trial of Hubert, 
Ronsin, and others — Danton's trial — Part played by 
Fouquier-Tinville — His letter to the Committee of 
Public Safety — Saint-Just's attitude — The arguments 
ended without having been begun — Fouquier and Madame 
de Lavergne's indictment — A mysterious affair — Chau- 
mette's trial and the first idea of the Conspiracy in the 
Prisons — Fouquier and his correspondence . , 39 



XX CONTENTS 

CHAPTER III 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE AND THE CONSPIRACIES IN THE PRISONS 

PAGE 

The attempt on CoUot-d'Herbois — ^The Law of the 22nd of 
Prairial — The " batches " of Prairial — Fouquier's task 
becomes miore complicated — How the writs of indict- 
ment are drawn up — The sessions of the Tribunal — ^The 
" red shirts " — ^The spies — The conspiracies in the prisons 
— Summary of the Public Prosecutor's work, and judg- 
ment passed on that work ..... 68 

CHAPTER IV 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE AND THE NINTH OF THERMIDOR 

The sessions of the Tribunal in the Hall of Equality — The 
amalgams — No material evidence — The paralytic Durand 
Puy de Verine — The arrest of President Dumas — 
Fouquier-Tinville's attitude — The departure of the six 
carts — Fouquier goes to dine with Vergnhes — " I cannot 
stop the course of justice " — The dinner at Vergnhes 's — 
New grounds for uneasiness — The rising — Fouquier goes 
back to the Palace — He sends for information about 
what is happening — " I remain at my post " — The 
evening in the refreshment room — Fouquier leaves for 
the Committee of Public Safetjr .... 104 

CHAPTER V 

THE REACTION OF THERMIDOR AND FOUQUIER-TINVILLE'S 

ARREST 

The loth of Thermidor at the Tribunal — Fouquier pleads 
against Robespierre, Couthon, Lavalette, Hanriot, 
Dumas, Saint-Just, Payan, Bernard, Gobeau, Gency and 
Vivier — He leaves the session so as not to plead against 
his friend Lescot-Fleuriot, the Mayor of Paris — ^The out- 
lawry of the loth of Thermidor — The outlawry of the nth 
— The Session of the 14th of Thermidor at the Conven- 
tion — "All Paris asks j^ou for the execution of Fouquier- 
Tinville " — Fouquier's arrest — Fouquier at the Con- 
ciergerie — Reflections during a first night in prison — 
First " Defensive Memorial " — Fouquier says he is inno- 
cent and a victim — He invokes humanity and justice in 
his favour . . . . . . .119 



CONTENTS xxi 



PART II 

CHAPTER VI 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE PREPARES HIS DEFENCE 

PAGE 

Second memorial for the defence — The affair of the Strasburg 
patriots — Fouquier clears himself — Re-organisation of 
the Revolutionary Tribunal — The Tribunal of the 23rd of 
Therraidor — Fouquier is heard at the bar of the Conven- 
tion — On the 12th of Fructidor Lecointre (of Versailles) 
raises Fouquier's case — A stormy session — Fouquier pro- 
tests against certain allegations — Errors of journalists — 
Fouquier asks to be heard again — He learns of the 
acquittal of the ninety-four inhabitants of Nantes who 
owe him their lives . . . . . .139 

CHAPTER VII 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE's first trial : THE INQUIRY 
(VENDEMIAIRE AND BRUMAIRE OF THE YEAR II) 

Fouquier-Tinville's letters to his wife — He has but to wait 
until his fate is decided — His anxiety is lest he should be 
" sacrificed and not judged " — Why without systemati- 
cally disregarding the evidence of the Parliamentary His- 
tory and that of Fouquier-Tinville's Printed Trial, we 
desire to have special recourse to the manuscript docu- 
ments relating to the inquiry — Beginning of that inquiry 156 

CHAPTER VIII 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE's FIRST TRIAL : CONTINUATION AND 
END OF THE INQUIRY. (VENDEMIAIRE AND BRUMAIRE 
OF THE YEAR III) 

Depositions concerning Fouquier and the prisoners' claims in 
regard to their money — " Give me the list of these beg- 
gars. I will make them pass through it to-morrow " — 
" Come, fellows, things must move " — Fouquier does not 
wish that defenders of the country who are only guilty of 
foolish actions should be put to death — Fouquier would 
have saved some counter-revolutionary ex-nobles from 
execution — Comte de Fleury's letter — At Danton's trial 



xxii CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Fouquier ought not to have made himself the accuser 
of the Dantonists and imputed to them false and calum- 
nious facts — " I want to induce the Tribunal to do without 
witnesses " — Fouquier 's terrible violence — " He was, so 
to speak, unapproachable " — ^The affair of Darmaing and 
Vadier — The case of Freteau — " Ready for delivery " — 
Madame Fouquier-Tinville's efforts on her husband's 
behalf ........ 177 

CHAPTER IX 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE AFFIRMS HIS INNOCENCE AND HIS 
HUMANITY. PUBLIC PROSECUTOR LEBLOIS ARGUES 
AGAINST HIM 

Fouquier's first examination (ist of Frimaire of the year III., 
November 21, 1794) — His system of defence — He is not 
responsible for the groupings, for the putting of masses of 
accused persons on trial together, for the substitution of 
one accused person for another — He has not prepared and 
arranged for the guillotine, the carts, and the sentences 
beforehand — Blank sentences are not his doing — He has 
not made a selection of the jurors — He has not influenced 
the witnesses — He has not kept back documents for the 
defence — The answer of Public Prosecutor Leblois to 
these denials of Fouquier — He charges him with having 
betrayed his office, with having conspired against the 
State and against the people, and with having promoted 
the re-establishment of royalty . . . .195 

CHAPTER X 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE's SECOND TRIAL : THE INQUIRY BY THE 
TRIBUNAL ESTABLISHED ON THE EIGHTH OF NIVOSE IN 
THE YEAR III 

The Tribunal of the 8th of Niv6se in the year HI. — First session 
— Aumont's speech — That of President Agier — ^The 
preliminary investigation for Fouquier's trial begins 
again on a wider basis and with new means of informa- 
tion — Depositions — Madame Cornulier, who had miracu- 
lously escaped the guillotine — Long depositions of the 
Morisans, the attendants in the refreshment-room of the 
Tribunal — What the hearings of the Tribunal were like 
after the 22nd of Prairial . . . , .216 



4 



CONTENTS xxiii 



CHAPTER XI 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE'S second trial : CONTINUATION OF 
THE INQUIRY 

PACE 

Depositions of Loizerolles the younger, whose father was 
guillotined through an error — The defenders became 
useless after the 22nd of Prairial — ^Vadier and Amar in 
Fouquier's room — Manini, spy and man of letters — The 
spy Beausire, husband of the woman Oliva — The hatches 
of the Tribunal — " The Tribunal was not a tribunal of 
morality and justice but a political tribunal, established 
to judge in accordance with pronounced public opinion " 
— " Strangling the proceedings " — Guy Marie Sallier, 
whose father was guillotined through an error — Long 
depositions of Pdris, called Fabricius, a friend of Danton, 
and registrar of the Revolutionary Tribunal , , 236 

CHAPTER XII 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE's second trial : END OF the INQUIRY : 
INDICTMENT FORMULATED BY JUDICIS 

Depositions regarding the execution of the Marquise de 
Feuquidres — Had Fouquier given orders that the child- 
ren at the Conciergerie should want for nothing ? — 
Evidence of Robert Wolff, clerk to the registrar — Fou- 
quier's outbursts and violence — It was dangerous under 
the Terror to have an income of 300,000 livres. Fou- 
quier's part in Danton's case, in that of Leonard Bourdon, 
in the alleged conspiracies in the prisons — ^His relations 
with certain jurors — The indictment formulated by 
Judicis ....... 257 

CHAPTER XIII 

THE FINAL EXAMINATION OF FOUQUIER, THE PROCEEDINGS 
IN COURT. VERDICT AND DEATH . . .275 

CHAPTER XIV 

CONCLUSION . . . . . . . 304 

INDEX . . . . . , . .311 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Antoine Ouentin Fouquier-Tinville 
gravure) ...... 

Madame Roland .... 

Peter Gaspar Chaumette . 

John May Roland de la Platiere . 



{Photo- 
Frontispiece 

TO FACE PAGE 

xii 

58 
60 



The Night of the Ninth of Thermidor, in the 
Year II. 



The Arrest of Robespierre 

Saint- Just ...... 

Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville . 
Madame Tallien .... 

Charlotte Corday .... 

Danton ...... 

The Guillotine ..... 

Camille Desmoulins .... 

The Trial of Fouquier-Tinville 
Bertrand Barere .... 



106 

116 

120 
140 

148 
180 
184 
196 

282 
296 



PART I 



THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR 
OF THE TERROR 

CHAPTER I 
fouquier-tinville's beginnings 

ON August 14, 1792, four days after the fall of the 
French Monarchy and the pillage of the Tuileries, 
a decree of the National Legislative Assembly 
ordered that the forty-eight Sections of Paris should 
appoint a jury d' accusation and a jury de jugement^ to take 
cognisance of the crimes committed on August 10 against 
the people. The Commune did not accept this decision 
of the Legislative Assembly. It wished to have a Court 
of Popular Justice. 

On the evening of the 15th, it sent a deputation to the 
Assembly. Maximilien Robespierre spoke on its behalf. 
He said that public tranquillity and, above all, liberty 
depended on the punishment of the guilty. The people's 
vengeance had not yet been satisfied. The men who had 
hidden themselves under the mask of patriotism, the men 
who had affected to speak the language of the laws in 
order to overthrow the laws, " that Lafayette who was not 
in Paris, but who could be there," were they to escape the 
national vengeance ? The guilty must be judged, finally 
and in the last resort, by commissiojiers chosen in each of 
the forty-eight Sections of the city.^ 

^ The jury d'accusation corresponded in some respects to our 
grand jury ; but its procedure was not public. It cross-examined 
prisoners, and prepared the case for trial before the jury de jugement. 
— Tr. 

* Moniteur for August 18, 1792. 



30 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

The Assembly endeavoured to oppose this. The Com- 
mune insisted, even threatened. On Friday, the 17th, at 
ten o'clock in the morning, an orator whom it had sent to 
the Feuillants proclaimed that a rising would take place at 
midnight. The tocsin would be sounded, and drums would 
beat to arms. The people were weary of not being avenged. 

The Commune gained the day. The Assembly capitu- 
lated. The decree was passed. The extraordinary criminal 
tribunal was about to set to work. It was to judge the 
crimes committed on the day of August 10, and " other 
crimes relative to it." It was to be composed of seven 
directors of the jury, who were to investigate and arrange 
its business ; of two presidents and six judges ; of two com- 
missioners and two prosecutors ; of four registrars and eight 
registrars' clerks ; of ninety-six members of the jury 
d' accusation and ninety-six members of the jury de jugement. 

The judges and the members of the jury of this tribunal 
were appointed during the night between the 17th and the 
i8th of August. Robespierre was at the head of the list,* 
and Coffinhal was one of the judges. On August 25 the 
electors, in thirty-two sections, chose " Monsieur Fouquier- 
Tinville " as one of the directors of the jury d' accusation. 

Antoine Quentin Fouquier was then forty-six years of 
age. He was bom at Herouel, near Saint-Quentin, on 
June 10, 1746. " His father," M. Campardon writes, "was 
a rich agriculturalist- of the district, who gave him so good 
an education that, at the period in his life when his occupa- 
tions least permitted him to think of Latin, he still liked to 
remember it ; for when he was Public Prosecutor of the Revo- 
lutionary Tribunal, he listened with pleasure to quotations 
from the ancient authors he had studied in his youth. He 

* Robespierre refused this post, as the performance of its duties 
were incompatible with those of a representative of the Commune 
of Paris. As he explains in a letter, he could not be the judge of 
those whose opponent he had been. [Momteur for August 28, 1792.) 

* His name was Eloy Fouquier, and he died in 1759, as is mentioned 
in the Precis pour le Comte FSlix de Pardieu et demoiselle Lelong 
de Vadancort, son Spouse, intimes, contre la dame veuve Fouquier 
d'Etinville appellante, preserved in the National Archives. 



FOUQUIER-TINVILLE'S BEGINNINGS 31 

was destined by his family for the bar ; accordingly, when his 
studies were completed, he went to Paris and entered a pro- 
curator's office ; he then signed himself Fouquier de Tinville, 
and had himself called by that name. His three brothers 
acted in the same way, and also added territorial titles to 
their patronymics ; one, Pierre Eloi Fouquier, became 
Fouquier d'Herouel ; another, Charles Fran9ois Fouquier, 
called himself Fouquier de VauviUe. Both were equerries 
and agents of the Royal Household. The third, Quentin 
Fouquier, who was only an advocate in the Parlement, 
none the less signed himself Fouquier de Forest. The future 
Public Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal was 
engaged, up to the end of the year 1773, in obtaining, through 
the medium of the procurators' offices in the capital, the 
practical knowledge which was indispensable if he were to 
perform correctly the duties of the office he desired to 
purchase. On January 21, 1774, the Chamber of Procura- 
tors of the Chatelet of Paris (now the solicitors of the lower 
court) granted him an admittatur." ^ Some days later he 
received his provisional letters of appointment. 

Those letters, dated January 25, gave and conceded to 
him the office of candidate procurator at the Chatelet of 
Paris, which had been held and exercised by Jean Louis 
Cornillier. The customary inquiry had been favourable. 
He was acknowledged to be " of good life, morals, and con- 
versation, and of the Catholic, Apostolic, and Roman 
religion." He took the oath, and was put into possession of 
his offices. Rue du Foin-Saint- Jacques, in the College of 
Maitre Gervais, parish of Saint-Severin, Sorbonne district. 
Two years later, he went to live in the Rue Pavee-Saint- 
Sauveur, " facing the Rue Fran9aise." We find him in- 
stalled there on January 23, 1776. In October, 1778, he was 
living in the Rue Bourbon- Villeneuve, in a fine house, " by 
the side of the great balcony, near the corner of the Rue 
Saint-Philippe." 

Maitre Fouquier de Tinville's practice was a good one, 

'• Campardon : Le Tribunal Revolutionnaire de Paris. Tome I.- 
p. 13 (Plon 1866). 



32 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

and included a large number of clients, drawn chiefly from 
the lower middle-classes — shopkeepers, artisans and traders. 
Some agriculturalists, farmers and wine-growers from the 
neighbourhood of Paris, from Charonne, Suresnes, VilUers- 
le-Bel, and elsewhere, also came to entrust their cases to 
him ; as did some religious establishments, such as the 
English Nuns, established in Paris in the Rue des Fosses- 
Saint-Victor, and the Nuns of Saint-Thomas, of the Order 
of Saint Dominic, in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Augustin. 
Fouquier, intelligent and active, was well suited for the 
management of affairs and for the subtleties of chicanery. 

He had married his cousin, Genevieve Dorothee Saugnier, 
on October 19, 1775, at the parish church of Notre-Dame- 
du-Mont-Saint-Martin, in the diocese of Cambrai. In the 
following year a son was born — Pierre Ouentin Fouquier, 
Then he had four daughters — Genevieve Louise Sophie, 
born on January 2, 1778 ; Emiiie Fran9oise, born on Decem- 
ber 7, 1778 ; Marie Adelaide, born on January 19, 1782. 
Three months later, April 24, 1782, Fouquier's young wife 
died, at the age of twenty-eight. ^ 

Within less than five months, Fouquier married again. 
His second wife was Henriette Gerard d'Aucourt, the 
daughter of a colonist who had died at San Domingo. In 
September, 1783, he sold his practice. For what reasons 
remains a mystery. It is noteworthy that " for motives of 
interest " Maitre Bligny, his successor, broke off all relations 
with him for more than ten years, and did not see him again 
until he had become Public Prosecutor. - 

x\t this period he was engaged in doubtful affairs, leading 
a submerged existence in Paris. He no longer lived in the 
Rue Bourbon-Villeneuve. He frequently changed his dwel- 
ling. In 1785, he was in the Faubourg Saint-Antoine, after- 
wards in the Rue Vieille-du-Temple ; in 1788, in the Rue 

^ All the information given here is taken from the documents 
preserved among the National Archives. Those documents include 
many powers and discharges given by clients to Maitre Fouquier de 
Tinville, procurator at the Chatelet. They also include baptismal 
and death certificates of the children and of Fouquier's first wife. 

* See later p. 232. 



A TRUE DESPOT 33 

Saint-Croix de la Bretonnerie ; in 1789, in the Rue Barre- 
du-Bec (which began at the Rue de la Verrerie, and ended 
at the Rue Saint-Merri and the Rue Saint-Croix de la 
Bretonnerie) ; in 179 1, in the Rue des Chartres and the 
Rue des Enfants Rouges ; in 1792, at Number 356, Rue 
Saint-Honore. 

On January 9, 1790, a son was born to his second wife ; 
in 1792, she had twins. One of his daughters, Marie Ade- 
laide, having died on May i, 1786, Fouquier had, at this 
period, seven children. 1 

Antoine Quentin Fouquier was a robust and strapping 
Picard, with large and strongly moulded neck and shoulders. 
His hair was dark and smooth, his forehead high, his face 
full and pitted with smallpox. He had a Roman nose and 
extremely arched and elevated eyebrows. His glance was 
keen, searching, disquieting, and very restless. Contem- 
poraries, who witnessed his trial, said that he was moody, 
but a good fellow. Many agreed in declaring that he was 
of a terribly violent and passionate, even brutal, character, 
a true " despot." 

How did this ex-procurator, who had become a vague 
" man of the law," and fallen into a precarious position, 
suddenly find a situation in the magistracy and become 
one of the directors of the jury d' accusation established by 
the law of August 17, 1792 ? The thing has been related 
by M. Campardon with the aid of M. Edouard Fleury's 
Camille Desmoulins and the papers relating to the tribunal 
of August 17 preserved among the Archives. 

Fouquier was a compatriot and even a distant relative of 
Camille Desmoulins. On August 20, 1792, he wrote to him : 

" Until the ever memorable day of the tenth of this month, 
my dear relative, the title of patriot has been not only a 
cause of exclusion from every office, but even a ground for 
persecution ; you yourself are an example of this. The 
time has come at last, we may hope, when true patriotism 
must conquer. . . . My patriotism is known to you, 

^ See Lenotre : Ls Tribunal R&volutionnaire (Paris : Perrin, 1908). 
c 



34 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

as well as my capacity in contentious matters. I flatter 
myself that you will be good enough to intercede for me with 
the Minister of Justice ^ in order to procure me a situation 
either in his own office or elsewhere. You know that I am 
the father of a numerous family and am badly off ; my eldest 
son, aged sixteen, who has rushed to the frontier, has cost 
and still costs me a great deal, etc., etc.^ 

" I am very truly, my dear relative, your very humble and 
most obedient servant. 

" FouQUiER, lawyer, 

" Rue Saint-Honore, 356, opposite the Assumption." 

Five days afterwards Fouquier was appointed one of the 
directors of the jury d' accusation. The Tribunal, established 
on August 17, lasted only three months. It was suppressed 
on November 29, 1792. During this period Fouquier had 
spoken in twenty-five cases ; the first, that of Nicolas Cazotte, 
who was charged with having counter-revolutionary con- 
nections, and condemned to death. The visionary Cazotte, 
who, thanks to the devotion of his daughter Ehsabeth, had 
escaped the massacres of September, was arrested owing 
to his " mystic correspondence," which had been seized at 
the Tuileries after August 10, and condemned for his letters 
to Pouteau. He had almost reached his seventy-third year. 
*' Old man," said Lavaux, the President of the Tribunal, 
to him, " face death without fear : it has nothing that can 
frighten you." An unnecessary recommendation. Cazotte 
remained impassive in the face of death. 

In the performance of his duties Fouquier-Tinville had 
given proof of an edifying zeal and a remarkable knowledge 

* Danton. 

* Two years later, on the 15th of Germinal in the year II., M. Des- 
moulins, the father, wrote to Fouquier to intercede for his son, 
who had been brought to trial with Danton and the Dantonists. 
" Greeting and fraternity," he wrote at the end of his letter, " from 
your compatriot and fellow-citizen Desmoulins, he who has hitherto 
honoured himself as being the father of Camille, the first and most 
unflinching of republicans." 

The letter arrived too late. Camille Desmoulins was already 
dead. (Claretie : Camille Desmoulins et les Dantonistes, p. 328.) 



A LETTER OF RESIGNATION 35 

of affairs. At the beginning of 1793, he was appointed 
deputy to the Pubhc Prosecutor of the Criminal Tribunal of 
the Department of Paris, and on February 9, deputy for the 
Procurator of the Commune of Paris ; but he resigned this 
post in order that he might retain that of deputy to the 
Public Prosecutor of the Criminal Tribunal, as being more 
suited to his abilities and tastes. Three days later he wrote 
to the Procurator-Syndic of the Tribunal for the district of 
Saint-Quentin : 

" Paris, this 12th February, 1793, year II. of the 
Republic. 

" Citizen Procurator-Syndic, 

" At the moment when I was elected by my fellow- 
citizens to the position of judge of the Tribunal for the dis- 
trict of Saint-Quentin, you know that I held the position of 
director of the jury d' accusation to the provisional Criminal 
Tribunal established on August 17 last ; at least I informed 
you of this. The duties of this latter position did not allow me 
to be present at the installation of the Tribunal, and since its 
suppression I have been busied with the distribution of all 
the suits in the ten Tribunals. This task has led me further 
than I expected, and at the moment when I was preparing to 
lake up my duties, the electoral body appointed me to be 
one of the Pubhc Prosecutors of the Criminal Tribunal of the 
Department of Paris. This position, which I believed it my 
duty to accept both on account of its importance and as a 
return for the confidence shown me by this great city, does 
not permit me to take up the duties of judge of the Tribunal 
of the district of Saint-Ouentin, and by this present letter 
I place my resignation in your hands. It is not without some 
regret that I tender my resignation, because it would have 
enabled me to live among my fellow-citizens and my family. 
But circumstances oblige me to take the present course, in spite 
of the obvious fact that in accepting this post of Prosecutor 
I impose upon myself the most stringent duty and privation. 
You will oblige me by conveying to my colleagues my regrets 
at not being able to join them. Moreover, my successor 



36 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

will not have cause to regret my resignation, the more so that 
as I have not been received and installed, he has a right tc^ 
receive the whole of the emoluments by being himself 
installed in my place. Even if I had not been appointed to 
the position of Prosecutor, I should stiU have been obliged 
to send in my resignation, for on Saturday last I was ap- 
pointed deputy to the Procurator of the Commune of Paris, 
and I am also about to send in to the Municipality my 
resignation of that post. 

" (Signed) Fouquier-Tinville." 

On Sunday, March lo, 1793, the National Convention, 
which, since the preceding day, had been occupied with 
discussing the creation of a Revolutionary Tribunal to try 
cases without appeal, was about to break up, exhausted, 
when Danton leaped into the tribune and cried out : "I 
call upon all good citizens not to leave their places ! " 

It was half-past six in the evening. The Convention re- 
mained motionless, subdued by Danton's voice. It was a 
critical moment. Liege was held by the enemy ; the French 
army had been compelled to raise the siege of Maestricht ; 
in Paris, preparations were being made for a riot. 

" Nothing is so difficult," cried Danton, "as to define a 
political crime ; but if a man of the people receives instant 
punishment for a private crime, if it is difficult to overtake 
a political crime, is it not necessary that extraordinary 
laws, taken from outside the social body, should terrify the 
rebels and overtake the guilty ? 

" The safety of the people now requires drastic measures. 
I see no middle course between the ordinary forms and a 
revolutionary tribunal. History attests this truth ; and 
since some in this assembly have dared to recall those blood- 
stained days which every good citizen has deplored,^ I will 
say, for my part, that if a tribunal had then existed, the 
people, who have been reproached so often and so cruelly 
for those days, would not have stained their hands with 
blood ; I will say, and shall have the assent of all who 
^ The massacres of September, 1792. 



" LET ENGLAND'S COMMERCE BE RUINED " 37 

-witnessed those events, that no human power could check 
the outbreak of national vengeance. 

" Let us profit by the faults of our predecessors. Let 
us do what the Legislative Assembly failed to do ; let us 
rather than the people be terrible ; let us organise a 
tribunal, not a perfect one, for that is impossible, but 
the best possible, in order that the people may know that 
the sword of the Law is suspended over the heads of its 
enemies. ... I demand, therefore, that the revo- 
lutionary, tribunal be organised before the present sitting 
comes to an end, that the executive power in the new organ- 
isation be entrusted with all the necessary powers of action 
and energy. . . . Accordingly, I sum up what I have 
said : this evening, the organisation of the tribunal, the 
organisation of the executive power ; to-morrow, a mihtary 
advance. By to-morrow let your commissioners have 
started ; let all France arise, rush to arms, march against 
the enemy ! Let Holland be invaded ; let Belgium be 
free ; let England's commerce be ruined ; let the friends of 
liberty triumph over that country ; let our arms, every- 
where victorious, bring deliverance and happiness to the 
people, and let the world be avenged ! " (Loud applause.) 

The sitting was adjourned at seven o'clock in the evening, 
after Danton's speech, and resumed at nine o'clock. The 
Convention voted the construction and organisation of an 
extraordinary Criminal Tribunal. It voted the penalties. 
At five o'clock in the morning the sitting was adjourned. 

This Tribunal, as everybody knows, was to try cases 
involving every counter-revolutionary enterprise, every 
attempt against the liberty, equality, unity, and indivisi- 
bility of the Republic, against the internal and external 
security of the State, all plots tending to re-establish royalty 
or to establish any authority hostile to the hberty, equality, 
and sovereignty of the people. It was composed of a jury 
and five judges. The judge who was elected first was to be 
president. The Tribunal was to have a Public Prosecutor 
and two deputies, chosen, hke the judges and the jurors, 
by the Convention. 



38 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

On the 13th the Convention appointed the members of 
the Tribunal. The President was Jacques-Bernard-Marie 
Montane, special lieutenant of the Seneschal's Court at 
Toulouse, born at Grenade in the Haute-Garonne. The 
Public Prosecutor, chosen by 180 votes, was Faure, his 
deputies, Fouquier-Tinville (163 votes), Donze-Verteuil, an 
ex-monk, and Lescot-Fleuriot, a sculptor (162 votes) . Faure 
resigned. Fouquier-Tinville was appointed in his place by a 
decree of the Convention dated the 15th, and accepted the 
post without hesitation. He regarded it " a duty " to do so, 
as he wrote on March 29, 1793, to the Minister of Justice. 1, 

^ Archives Nationales, BB * bis 25. 



CHAPTER II 

"THE DICTATORSHIP OF JUSTICE "^ 

ON April 5, 1793, the Public Prosecutor was invested 
with the right of causing the arrest, prosecution, 
and trial of all persons accused of the crime of 
conspiracy or of " national offences," Deputies and 
generals excepted. An information lodged by the consti- 
tuted authorities, or even by private citizens, was sufficient. 
On his warrant, any individual was at once arrested, 
prosecuted and tried. The accused was incarcerated in 
one of the prisons with which Paris abounded from the 
beginning of the year II. 

To analyse the trials, great and small, which occupied the 
officials and the sessions of the Revolutionary Tribunal from 
April, 1793, to the end of July, 1794, would be to perform a 
useless work. They have been examined, and that in a 
definitive fashion. What took place is known. Moreover, 
our subject is not the history of the Revolutionary Tribunal, 
but a study of Fouquier-Tinville's responsibility as Public 
Prosecutor. 

An individual was arrested as a suspect. The official 
report of his arrest was drawn up at the committee of sur- 
veillance of his Section. This document contained the cross- 
examination he had undergone before the members of that 
committee. The accused person was then sent, with the 
documents relating to him, before the Committee of General 
Security, where he was again questioned. Thence he was 
despatched to the Revolutionary Tribunal. The documents 
were sent by the Committee of General Security to the 
Public Prosecutor, who examined them, made a summary of 
the facts, arranged the charges, quoted the incriminating 
* Saint- Just's phrase. 
39 



40 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

words or writings, noted the denials of the accused. In a 
word he drew up his indictment. He took care to indicate 
that the accused person acted " wickedly and intentionally " 
with a view " to provoke the national dissolution and the 
re-establishment of royalty." In consequence, he demanded 
that the assembled Tribunal should grant him a writ of 
indictment, that the person of the accused be seized, and 
that he be entered on the gaol-book of the house of detention 
of the Conciergerie, to remain there as in a house of justice. 

At the hearing of the case before the Tribunal, Fouquier- 
Tinville supported the accusation. If the declaration of the 
jury were negative, the accused was set at liberty, at least 
unless Fouquier demanded his detention in prison as a 
measure of general security. (We shall see that in this way 
some accused persons, such as Freteau, were acquitted by the 
jury, to be rearrested afterwards by Fouquier, again brought 
before the Tribunal, and this time condemned.) If the 
declaration of the jury were affirmative, the Public Prosecu- 
tor moved that the law be applied, which meant sending the 
prisoner to the guillotine. 

It would be wearisome to analyse Fouquier-Tinville's 
writs of indictment, so monotonous is their style, marked 
as it is throughout with the revolutionary phraseology whose 
continuous exaggeration and terrible vagueness we can 
scarcely understand to-day. The only fact that stands 
out from them is that, during the first period of his magis- 
tracy (from April, 1793, to April, 1794), Fouquier drew up his 
indictments conscientiously enough and in accordance with 
the cross-examination of the accused persons and the docu- 
ments that had been transmitted to his office. He showed 
himself, on the whole, careful in observing the law, and did not 
go beyond the rights and powers that it conferred upon him. 
He did not discuss the component parts of the accusation 
that he had in his hands. He criticised neither their value 
nor their origin. He did not stop to weigh the for and 
against. He did not ask whether such and such an affirma- 
tion, such and such a denunciation, deserved credit or not. 
He admitted in its entirety the most questionable evidence. 



THE PLEADING AGAINST THE QUEEN 41 

He accepted everything and gave a summary of aU, He 
expounded and affirmed. He was the organ of the law. He 
adapted himself exactly, with activity, zeal, and application, 
to the designs and intentions of the legislators. His pleadings 
for the prosecution fell upon the accused like the blows of a 
€lub. Moreover, he struck without discrimination all those 
who were pointed out to him, whatever the social class to 
which they belonged, and whatever their position, their 
origin, or their opinions. 

But if, in the mass, Fouquier-Tinville's indictments seem 
to us tiresome to read, we must except some upon which he 
expended imagination and style. Such, for example, are 
those of Marie Antoinette and Madame du Barry. " From 
an examination made of all the documents transmitted by 
{sic) the Public Prosecutor," say the pleadings drawn up 
by Fouquier against the Queen, "it is clear that, like the 
Messalinas, Brunehaut, Fredegonde and Medicis, who 
were formerly described as Queens of France and whose 
eternally odious names will not be effaced from the annals of 
history, Marie Antoinette, the widow of Louis Capet, has 
since her residence in France been the scourge and blood- 
sucker of the French people ; that she had political relations 
with the man described as the King of Bohemia and of 
Hungary even before the happy revolution that has given 
back their sovereignty to the French people ; that those 
relations were contrary to the interests of France. . . ." 

" Citizens and jurors," said he, when summing up his 
indictment against Madame du Barry, " you have given 
your verdict on the plots of the wife of the last tyrant of the 
French ; you have at this moment to give your verdict on 
the conspiracies of her infamous predecessor. You see 
before you this Lais, famed for the licentiousness of her 
morals, the publicity and the display of her debauchery, 
whose wantonness alone made her share the destinies of the 
despot who sacrificed the blood and treasure of the people to 
his shameful pleasures." 

From the outset of his magistracy, at the beginning 
of April, 1793, Fouquier was as a rule pitiless towards 



42 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

drunkards^ and madmen, and on April lo he asked the 
Court to inflict the punishment of death on Luttier, an 
old soldier, who, overcome by drink, asked some work- 
men at the corner of the Rue de la Huchette " whether 
they were Republicans and whether they had a soul, 
afftrming to them that he had a soul, that it was for his 
king who had paid for it ; ^ that the king was not dead ; but 
that he still existed and would soon appear ; that France 
was ruined unless there was a king, because France was too 
large for a Republic. . . ." Luttier was guillotined. On 
April i8, Fouquier appeared against a Paris cook, Catherine 
Clere, who, on the night of the 7th of March preceding, 
had been seen to fall dovra by a municipal officer who 
was returning home. He picked her up drunk, and she 
immediately said to him " that she would not allow the son's 
head to be cut off like his father's," adding that she meant 
" the little boy who is in the Temple." She was brought to 
the poHce station, and called out " Long live the King ! " 
and, say Fouquier' s pleadings, indulged in talk which 
" manifested the disorder of drunkenness." But Fou- 
quier demanded the punishment of death for Catherine 
Clere, " for having wickedly and designedly, in cafes and at 
the poHce station, publicly indulged in conversation tending 
to provoke murder, the dissolution of the national repre- 
sentation, and the re-establishment of royalty in France." 
Fouquier was not embarrassed by the evident contradiction 
existing between the disordered ideas and words of the 
unhappy woman under the influence of drunkenness, and 

1 It was not the offence of drunkenness that he proceeded against. 
He explains his conduct in this matter on the occasion of the im- 
peachment of Menou, an officer of the Carabineers, on the 15th 
of Messidor in the year II. 

" The drunkenness in which it appears that he was plunged at the 
time of this counter-revolutionary excess cannot serve him as an 
excuse. A drunken republican has never asked for a king ; but it 
is not astonishing that a royalist, masked as a republican, should, 
in the disorder of drunkenness, allow his secret to escape." — Archives 
Nationales, W. 404, No. 933, 2nd part. 

* He had served in what had been the king's regiment of infantry. 
Archives Nationales, W. 268, No. 4. 



THE LAW'S BUTCHERIES 43 

the intention of having wickedly, and therefore knowingly, 
conspired against the Convention. Catherine Clere was 
guillotined, although her master, M. de Wailly, and other 
witnesses had come forward to declare they had never 
known her to be against the Revolution. 

We could go on with these quotations, drawing from 
them sinister or dramatic effects. We prefer to expound 
succinctly but clearly the legislative measures in virtue of 
which Fouquier's powers become more and more excessive. 

This exposition is necessary to give some idea of how the 
Public Prosecutor, who was only an agent, though a supple, 
zealous and active agent — one who, moreover, felt himself 
closely watched by terrible political chiefs — came, quite 
naturally and by an implacable interpretation of the revolu- 
tionary laws, to symbohse Terror and Dismay, at first 
almost insensibly, then in crescendo to the final butchery. 
We must not forget, that if in thirteen months (from April, 
1793, to the 22nd of Prairial in the year H.) 1,259 victims 
mounted the scaffold ; during the last forty-nine days of 
the Terror (from the 22nd Prairial to the gth of Thermidor) 
1,366 persons were guillotined as conspirators. 

On July 19, 1793, Fouquier directed the attention of the 
Convention to the continuous increase of work that was 
thrown upon the Tribunal by " circumstances," " The 
mass of business," he writes, " would require at least eight 
judges, five of whom would be occupied with the hearings 
and the other three with the prehminaries. In this way, 
I venture to assure the Convention that I shall attend to all 
the business as promptly as circumstances permit." 

The external situation of France was most critical. 
Mayence capitulated on July 23 ; Valenciennes on the 28th. 
After Conde's surrender. General Custines had been recalled 
to Paris on the 12th. The Convention increased the staff 
of the Revolutionary Tribunal. On July 24 the number of 
judges was raised from five to seven. The Public Prosecutor 
and the President were to have a salary of 8,000 livres per 
annum. Then, on July 31, two sections were created. The 
number of judges and jurors was raised to ten ; the number 



44 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

of Fouquier's deputies from two to three ; that of the 
registrar's clerks from three to four^ ; and that of the corre- 
spondence clerks from three to four. The number of jurors 
was raised to thirty. 

The following were appointed judges : Coffinhal, an 
ex-doctor, formerly a national commissioner of the Tribunal 
of the Second Arrondissement of Paris ; Nicolas Grebeau- 
val, formerly Fouquier's secretary ; Gabriel Toussaint 
Scelher, the judge-director of the jury d'accusation. 

On August 28, Armand Martial Joseph Herman, the 
President of the Criminal Tribunal of the Pas-de-Calais, 
a compatriot of Robespierre, was appointed Vice-President 
of the Tribunal, in Montane's place. Why was Montan6 
replaced ? Fouquier-Tinville had denounced him to the 
Convention on July 30 for having committed two grave 
mistakes. First, at Charlotte Corday's trial, Montane had 
substituted " criminal intentions " for " counter-revolu- 
tionary tendencies," a change that might have saved the 
prisoner's life. Secondly, at the trial of Leonard Bourdon's 
assailants he had erased from the minute the clause about 
the confiscation of property. ^ Montane was summoned 
before the second section of the Tribunal which had just 
been created, but he did not put in an appearance. He was 
arrested ; but Fouquier forgot him in his prison, in spite of 
the entreaties of Montane, who wished to be tried. This 
touch of humanity on Fouquier's part saved Montane's 
life. He outlived the 9th of Thermidor, and was acquitted 
after many months of detention. 

On August 25 Marseilles was taken ; on the 28th Toulon 
surrendered to the English. Lyons was in open insurrection. 

On September 5 the Sections demanded that Terror should 
be the order of the day. Merhn (of Douai) told the Con- 
vention that the Tribunal was overwhelmed with business ; 
prisoners were coming in from all parts of France. Still, 
it was necessary for " prompt justice to be granted to the 
people." By decrees of September 5 and 14, the Tribunal 

^ There was only a single registrar. 

" Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 91. 



EVERY NOBLE AND PRIEST A SUSPECT 45 

was to be composed of four sections and sixteen judges (in- 
cluding the President and the Vice-President), sixty jurors, 
eight registrar's clerks, and eight correspondence clerks. 
" The scope of the Tribunal " had to be increased more 
and more. 

In order to make it more effective it was necessary to 
have the assistance of the Revolutionary Committees. These 
reorganised Committees were charged with the task of 
proceeding immediately to the arrest of suspected persons. 
Full powers were granted them for this purpose. Billaud- 
Varenne had said : " We must search out our enemies in 
their dens. Night and day will hardly suffice to arrest them. 
I demand that we regard as a suspect every noble and 
every priest who, on the adoption of this decree, is not found 
residing in his municipality." " There are other suspects," 
Bazire had added, " there are shopkeepers, wholesale mer- 
chants, stock-jobbers, ex-procurators (solicitors), bailiffs, 
insolent servants, stewards and men of business, men of 
large independent means, tricksters in essence, profession, 
and education." 

These propositions were carried unanimously. ^ 

A decree of September 6 ordered the arrest of all 
foreigners resident in France. The committees of 
surveillance ^ were to draw up lists of suspects, and to 
issue warrants for their arrest. At the sitting of September 
14, Merlin (of Douai) caused the work to be divided among 
the four sections of the Tribunal. Every day two sections, 
alternately, were to try cases ; the other two, in the 
Council Chamber, were to be engaged in the preliminary 
preparations for other trials. 

Fouquier's tasks became very much heavier from day to 
day. He took his inspiration from the propositions enun- 
ciated by Chaumette on October 10, 1793, at the Council of 
the Commune. 

" Those are suspects who, in the Assemblies of the people, 
check its energy by astute speeches, turbulent cries, and 

^ Moniteur for September 7, 1793. 
^ Established by the law of March 21. 



46 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

murmurs ; those who, more prudent, speak mysteriously 
of the ills of the Repubhc, pity the fate of the people, and 
are always ready to spread evil tidings with an affectation of 
grief ; those who have changed their conduct and their lan- 
guage in accordance with events ; those who, silent about 
the crimes of royalists and federalists, declaim with em- 
phasis against the slight faults of patriots, and, in order to 
appear republican, affect a studied austerity and severity ; 
those who contradict themselves when it is a question of a 
moderate or an aristocrat ; those who pity the farmers and 
the rapacious merchants against whom the law is obliged 
to take measures ; those who, having always on their lips 
such words as liberty, republic and country, associate with 
the men who were formerly nobles, with counter-revolution- 
ary priests, aristocrats, feuillants and moderates, concerning 
themselves about their fate ; those who, having done 
nothing against liberty, also do nothing for it."^ 

The strength of the revolutionary government lay in 
" virtue " and " terror. "^ But the people were hungry, 
were dying of hunger. They were offered the spectacle of 
the scaffold and the daily execution of conspirators. At the 
hour of the executions they crowded to the Place de la 
Revolution. On the 4th of Germinal in the year II., the 
Chalier Section informed the General Council of the Com- 
mune that on that day several unfortunate accidents had 
been caused by the great crowds of citizens, and the private 
stands erected on the Place. The General Council ordered 
that in future there should neither be private stands nor 
carts that could block the way ; that citizens should be 
forbidden to lift up their canes or their hats at the 
moment when the sword of the law was about to strike 
the guilty. =^ 

On the 5th of Germinal (March 25, 1794) Fouquier wrote 
the following letter to Hanriot, the commander-in-chief of 
the Parisian guard : 

1 Moniteur for October 12, 1793. 

^ The saying is Robespierre's. 

' Moniteur for the 9th of Germinal, year II. 



FOUQUIER'S METHODS 47 

" Citizen, 

" The burial place of the condemned having been trans- 
ferred to Mousseaux/ and the police force of the Tribunal 
being insufficient for this daily and continual service of the 
Tribunal, would it not be well for you to give orders that 
four mounted men should be an escort from the place of 
execution to the place where the bodies are deposited ? In 
this manner the police would be able to return promptly 
to their post, and the work of the Tribunal would not be 
delayed. I beg you to take this matter into consideration. 

" Greeting and fraternity, 

" A. Q. FouguiER." 

The 5th of Germinal was the day following the condemna- 
tion of Hebert, Vincent, Ronsin, and their associates (20 
accused persons in all). In spite of virtue, liberty, unity, 
indivisibility, equality, in spite of the laws made for them, 
the people suffered greatly. They were hungry. They 
drank. The drunkards who were arrested as conspirators 
demanded a king " because things cannot go on like this." 
They were too wretched. " As for the crowd of those who 
are accustomed to attend the sittings of the Tribunal, indig- 
nant as it is," says a police observer, " it sees with uneasiness 
the Tribunal pursuing a course contrary to the laws of 
humanity and justice. "^ 

This phrase of the observer was written at the close of 
one of the sittings during Hebert's trial, a trial conducted 
rapidly and harshly by Dumas, the Vice-President. 
Fouquier did not trouble himself much about investi- 
gations or proofs in drawing up his indictment against 
the editor of the Pere Duchesne and his nineteen fellow- 
prisoners (one of whom was a woman, Catherine Quetineau, 
the widow of the republican colonel who was guillotined on 
the 26th of Ventose in the year II.). Moral proofs and his 
orders were enough for Fouquier. If he were inspired by 
the words spoken by Chaumette at the Council of the Com- 
mune on October 10, 1793, he was also mindful of the more 

^ This was the name then given to the village of Monceau. 
* Situation de Paris du 2 germinal, an II. — Schmidt, II., p. 178, 



48 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

recent political speeches of Robespierre and Saint-Just. 
It was a matter of crushing the " lenient " among the party 
of the Mountain in the person of Danton, and of suppressing 
the rising insurrection of the Commune in the person of 
Hebert. Robespierre branded them as the moderates and the 
ultras. At the Convention, on the 8th of Ventose (February 
26, 1794), Saint-Just said : — 

" What establishes a repubhc is the total destruction of 
all that is opposed to it. People complain of revolutionary 
measures ; but we are moderates in comparison with all 
other governments. ... A striking sign of treason is 
the pity shown towards crime in a republic which can be 
based only on inflexibility. . . . The revolutionary 
government which had established the dictatorship of justice 
no longer soars as it did. . . . Destroy the rebel party ; 
paint Hberty in the colour of bronze."^ And, when he 
asked for judicial weapons against the "corrupt and violent" 
who had sold themselves to the foreigner, those weapons 
were granted. This is the decree of the 23rd of Ventose of 
the year II. : 

"... The Revolutionary Tribunal will continue 
to give information against the authors and accomphces of 
the conspiracy directed against the French people and their 
liberty. It will cause prisoners to be promptly arraigned 
before it and will bring them to trial. . . ." 

That very night, Hebert, Ronsin, Vincent, and their 
associates were arrested. " Never," wrote Fouquier-Tin- 
ville in his indictment, " has there existed against the 
sovereignty of the French people and its liberty a conspiracy 
more atrocious in its object, vaster, more immense in its- 
connections and details ; but the active vigilance of the 
Convention has caused its failure by unmasking it and by 
handing over to the Tribunal those who appear to have been 
its principal instruments. "^ Then he summed up the facts 
in his own way, in conformity with the directions of the tvfo 
Committees. 

1 Moniteur for the 9th of Ventose, year II. 
^ Archives Nationales, W. 339, dossier 617. 



FOUQUIER'S DILIGENCE 49 

Every one knows the piteous attitude of Hebert during 
his trial. He did not defend himself. He answered with a 
" yes " or "no." The violent editor of the Pere Duchesne 
was in a state of utter collapse. On the other hand, Vincent, 
Momoro, and Ronsin rivalled one another in insolence.^ 
Three of the accused were acquitted. Laboureau, a medical 
student, forty-one years of age, was acquitted and received 
the fraternal embrace. He was a police spy. Colonel 
Quetineau's widow declared herself enceinte. She was taken 
to the Eveche hospital, and was perceived to be four months 
gone with child. The Tribunal ordered a postponement of 
her execution ; but misfortune followed her. Some da^^s 
later, she had a miscarriage. On May 11, Bayard and Thery, 
officers of health, handed her a certificate of convalescence. 
Fouquier-Tinville immediately applied to the Tribunal, and 
the Tribunal ordered " that within twenty-four hours the 
judgment of the 4th of Germinal last, which condemned the 
widow Quetineau to death, should be proceeded with, the 
whole matter being at the suit of the Public Prosecutor." 
She was guillotined on the same day. 

The Public Prosecutor's diligence was extreme. In order 

not to lose time in going and coming he lived close to the 

Palace of Justice, in the Place Thionville (now the Place 

Dauphine). Rising at dawn, he was in his office before the 

beginning of the sittings, which generally opened at nine or 

ten o'clock in the morning, going through the formidable 

correspondence which reached him from the Departments, 

preparing the work of the Tribunal, spurring on his 

secretaries, directing his deputies. " Business " flowed in 

pell-mell. How was he to cope with it ? It was necessary 

to act quickly and to strike hard. His political chiefs 

* The day on which Hebert appeared for his trial (ist of Germinal 
in the year II., March 21, 1794) Legendre, at the Jacobin Club, had 
energetically expounded what the sentiments of patriots ought to 
be; he declared that, as soon as the Committee of Public Safety 
designated those who were factious, all good citizens ought to dis- 
regard the bonds of blood and of friendship. Legendre himself 
promised to deliver to the sword of the law those who were dearest 
to him, if they were designated as traitors. {Moniteur of the 5th 
of Germinal, year II.) 



50 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

were there watching him. Would he give it up ? Would 
he send in his resignation ? He could not even dream of 
doing so. What would become of him ? What would 
become of his family ? He must obey. And he obeyed. 
He was an executive agent. 

Hitherto he had contented himself with observing and 
following the law — that law which changed so often. His 
indictments were, in reaUty, only written summaries of the 
documents that had been handed to him, or of the examina- 
tions of the prisoners. Fouquier himself was content 
to execute the law and administer the decrees, and had 
shown himself a strict and hard observer of that law and 
of those decrees. Now he was to give proof of initiative, to 
play a personal part, to show himself. He would violate the 
judicial forms ; he would be partial. He would suggest to 
his chiefs of the two Committees of General Security and 
of Pubhc Safety that the powers at his command were 
too small, that it was possible, by decrees adapted to the 
circumstances, to go farther, to strike conspirators and 
suspects more surely. 

Herault de Sechelles had been arrested. And Billaud- 
Varenne had declared it necessary " to kill Danton." Saint- 
Just had said : " If we do not have him guillotined, we shall 
be guillotined." On the loth of Germinal (March 30, 1794), 
Danton was arrested at six o'clock in the morning. So 
were Phihppeaux, Lacroix, Camille Desmouhns, Fabre and 
Chabot. 

In his indictment Fouquier-Tinville intended to amalga- 
mate old charges, recent documents, and quite new denun- 
ciations, intentionally confusing political prisoners and those 
charged with gambling in the funds. The bankers, Frey, 
Gusman and Deisderichen were to be associated with Danton 
and his friends on the grounds of complicity in the affair of 
the East India Company. No proof was adduced to support 
this audacious affirmation. The Freys, for example, a 
couple of German Jews who had come to Paris in order, so 
they said, to breathe " the air of liberty," and who became 
army contractors in 1792, had doubtless been speculators but 



GENERAL WESTERMANN'S TRIAL 52 

not State conspirators. Fouquier describes Deisderichen 
as " one of the lawyers of the King of Denmark." This is 
neither a charge nor an argument, but seems to insinuate 
that he had communications with the foreigner. Just as 
the foreigners, Proly, Cloots, Pereyra, had, on the 4th of 
Germinal, been guillotined along with the violent party, the 
ultras, Hebert, Ronsin and Vincent ; so Gusraan, Frey, and 
Deisderichen were accused together with the moderates, 
with Danton and the others. This indictment was drawn 
up from the manuscript of a speech made at the Convention 
by Amar, a member of the Committee of General Security, 
on the affair of the East India Company. 

General Westermann was also among the accused. 
*' Westermann," writes Dr. Robinet, " was placed in the 
dock without any of the customary judicial preliminaries. 
He had not been questioned. His indictment, which had 
not been communicated to him (how then could he prepare 
his defence ?), bad been drawn up by Fouquier on the basis of 
documents that he had not even seen, for they were sealed uf>, 
as is proved by the official report made out on that very day 
at the General's house, 63, Rue Mesle, by members of the 
Committee of Surveillance of the Gravilliers Section. "^ 
In fact, the warrant for the General's arrest, the order for 
Ms attachment, confirmed by a decree of the Convention, 
and his writ of indictment are all of the same date, the 13th 
of Germinal (April 2, 1794).^ The 14th is the date of the 
order for his trial by the Tribunal, the verification of the 
prisoner's identity, his examination and appearance in 
court. Fouquier drew up his writ of indictment on the 
13th, and says in it " that an examination of the report of 
the questions put to Westermann to-day before the Tribunal, 
as well as of the documents (which the court had not yet at 
its disposal, and which, on the contrary, it was at that very 
moment arranging to have seized and placed under seals) 
shows that Westermann has supported the conspiracy of 
Dumouriez with all his power." 

1 Robinet : Le Prochs des Dantonistes, p 440. 

' Archives Nationales, W. 342, dossier 648, 3'°^ partie. 



52 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

But there was more to come, viz. : the part played by 
the PubUc Prosecutor at the sitting of the 15th of Germinal 
(April 4, 1794). 

It is not necessary to linger over the charge made by Paris, 
the registrar, called Fabricius, against Fouquier-Tinville, at 
the time of his trial, that he, along with Lescot-Fleuriot, had 
selected the jurors for Danton's trial instead of choosing 
them by lot. Paris, the registrar, was a friend of Danton. 
He was arrested for refusing to sign the docimient containing 
Danton's sentence. It is possible that on the day when he 
had to give evidence against Fouquier, he may, out of ill- 
will towards him, have imputed everything to him. 

In the notes of Topino-Lebrun, who was present at the 
sitting, it is stated that Fouquier and Herman, the presiding 
judge, acted together in directing the proceedings. They 
passed notes to one another of this character : — 

" Herman. — In half-an-hour I shall close Danton's 
defence. . . ." 

" Fouquier. — I have a question to ask Danton relating to 
Belgium when you have finished your questions." 

" Herman. — We must not enter into the Belgian business 
in regard to anybody except Lacroix and Danton ; and 
when we have reached that point, we must hurry on. . ." 

Herman and Fouquier were continually interrupting the 
prisoners' defence in order to exhaust the three days at the 
end of which the presiding judge of the Tribunal had a 
right to ask the jury if they would declare themselves 
sufficiently informed and ready to close the case.^ 

There is another significant fact — that Lacroix insisted 
on being allowed to speak, and said that it was impossible 
for the jury to be sufficiently informed since they had not 
heard the witnesses. Addressing Fouquier, he asked him 
if he had summoned the witnesses, a list of whom he had sent 
him. At this question Fouquier was " a little taken aback." 
He answered that he had lost it. Lacroix expressed aston- 

^ On the initiative of Fouquier-Tinville this right had been given 
to the presiding judge by a decree of the 7th of Brumaire in the year 
II., on the occasion of the trial of the Girondins. 



AN APPEAL TO THE COMMITTEE 53 

ishment. Fouquier replied that he was within his rights, 
according to the law, in not giving witnesses to the prisoners. 
Lacroix and the others pointed out that as they themselves 
had helped to pass this law, they knew it, and that it did 
not state what the Public Prosecutor wanted to make it 
say. Then Fouquier declared that he would write to the 
Convention in order that " the fact might be cleared up."^ 

During the hearing he wrote, not to the Convention, but 
to the Committee of Public Safety, the famous letter in 
which he gave an account of the prisoners' demands. 

" Paris, this 15th of Germinal in the Second Year of the 
Republic one and indivisible." 

" Citizens and representatives, 

' ' A horrible storm has been raging from the moment 
that the session began : the prisoners, like madmen, are 
demanding the hearing of witnesses for the defence, the 
citizens and Deputies, Simon, Courtois, Laignelot, Freron, 
Panis, Ludot, Callon, Merlin (of Douai), Gossuin, Legendre, 
Robert Lindet, Robin, Goupilleau (of Montaigu), Lecointre 
(of Versailles), Brival, and Merlin (of Thionville). They are 
appealing to the people against the refusal which they say 
they have received ; in spite of the firmness of the presiding 
judge and of the entire Tribunal, their repeated demands 
disturb the sitting, and they openly proclaim that they 
will not be silent until their witnesses are heard and that 
without a decree ; we request you definitely to lay down a 
course for us to follow in regard to this demand, the judicial 
procedure not furnishing us with any means of justifying 
this refusal. 

" A. Q. Fouquier, Herman, presiding judge."^ 

Saint- Just cynically abstained from reading this letter to 
the Convention, He exclaimed : " The wretches ! They 
confess their crime by resisting the law ! ... At this 

^ Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 58, 
* Before composing this letter with Herman, Fouquier had 
written another, differing considerably from this, which contained 
the words ; " The only method would in our opinion be a decree." 



54 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

moment conspiracies in their favour are being organised 
in the prisons ; at this moment the aristocrats are stirring ! '" 
He informed the Convention of the denunciation of Citizen 
Laflotte, a spy in the Luxembourg prison, showing that a 
conspiracy with the object of murdering the members of the 
Convention and of the Tribunal existed among the prisoners 
and the accused. He proposed a decree depriving them of 
the right to plead. " Every person accused of conspiracy 
who shall resist or insult the national justice, shall immedi- 
ately be deprived of the right to plead." The decree was 
passed. Amar and VouUand carried it to the Tribunal. 
Fouquier requested that the decree be read and registered. 
On the i6th, at the opening of the hearing, he declared to 
Danton and Lacroix that their witnesses would not be heard. 
The presiding judge read the decree of the 7th of Brumaire 
of the year H., authorising the Tribunal to ask the jury if 
they were sufficiently informed. The jury retired. After 
a fairly long interval they returned. On the same evening, 
Trinchard, the foreman of the jury, declared that they were 
sufficiently informed. Fouquier then stated that, owing 
to the indecency and blasphemy of the accused during the 
trial, he saw himself obhged to take measures proportionate 
to the gravity of the circumstances. At his request the 
Tribunal had ordered that the questions should be put to 
the jury and sentence passed m the absence of the accused. 
Carts were waiting in the courtyard of the Conciergerie. 
The Dantonists passed from the audience chamber to the 
condemned cell. They heard their death sentence whilst 
they were being prepared for execution. They then set 
out for the guillotine. 

In reality the pleadings had been closed without ever 
having begun. No document had been read. None of the 
witnesses who were asked for had been heard. Fouquier 
had assumed a terrible responsibility. Besides the fact, 
of which Paris afterwards accused him, that he and 
Herman had gone into the jurors' room in order to 
influence them during their dehberations, he had dis- 
torted the character of the protests made by the accused 



A MONSTROUS DECREE 55 

when they insisted on having witnesses, as was their right, 
and this was a crime. Moreover, when he suggested in his 
letter to the Committee of PubHc Safety that it was possible, 
by a decree, to deprive the accused of speech and liberty 
of defence, he committed a second crime. He gave Saint- 
Just a weapon for his judicial coup d'etat. 

Later, when he was accused in his turn, he denied that 
he was responsible for the judgment passed on Danton 
and for his death. 

" I appeal to common sense and to reason. If I had an 
understanding with the ferocious and sanguinary Robes- 
pierre and his accomplices^ to deprive Danton and the 
other accused of all means of justifying themselves : ist. 
should I have written the letter of which I have just spoken ? 
2nd. should I have informed the Committee that the accused 
demanded with loud outcries to have a certain number of 
Deputies heard in their defence ? 3rd. should I have 
stated that the accused appealed to the entire people 
against the refusal they received ? No, certainly not, 
unless, indeed, you wish to find evil in the simplest and most 
correct acts, etc. . . . Could I expect that by an act 
of perfidy as guilty as it was incredible, Saint- Just, who 
received my letter, would change its text and attribute to 
me the assertion that the accused were in open rebellion, 
etc. ? " 

Why, instead of addressing his letter to the Committee 
of Pubhc Safety, where he knew Saint- Just and Robespierre 
were determined to crush Danton, had he not addressed 
it to the Convention ? Danton might perhaps have been 
saved. Why should we be dupes of the words, " unless, 
indeed, we wish to find evil in the simplest and most correct 
acts," when we have in mind the last phrase in his first letter 
to the Committee : " It is urgent that you indicate a 
course for us to follow, and the only method would in our 
opinion be a decree " ? By these words he obviously 
suggests a judicial method of preventing the defence. This 
would be a decree. Saint- Just did not need to be told twice. 
* This was written after the 9th of Thermidor. 



56 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

The decree was passed. It is possible that this single letter 
of Fouquier's may have caused his ruin some months later, 

Fouquier was an agent of the law ; but should all feehng 
of humanity, aU pity, be abolished when it was a matter of 
applying that law? Why should he have no share in the 
responsibility for the atrocious condemnation of Madame 
de Lavergne, on the day before Danton's trial ? The facts 
are these. Louis Frangois de Lavergne-Champlaurier, Heu- 
tenant-colonel, military commander of Longwy, had just 
been condemned for having delivered Longwy to the enemy. 
He was very ill and aged. His wife had personally taken 
steps with the Committee of General Security to ask for a 
reprieve. Madame de Lavergne was twenty-six, young 
and beautiful. Amar, old Vadier (called " sixty j^ears of 
virtue "), and Voulland received her banteringly, pretending 
to be surprised that "she wished to put off the moment 
that would rid her of an old and infirm husband." ^ She 
went to the Vice-President of the Tribunal. Dumas received 
her as Amar, Vadier, and Voulland had done. Then she 
understood there was nothing left for her to do. She went 
to the Tribunal and seated herself on the ground in the 
middle of the crowd. She waited until the hearing began. 
Then she saw the gaolers of the Conciergerie carry in her 
husband on a mattress, in a dying condition. The writ of 
indictment was read, and sentence of death pronounced. 

Suddenly a cry rose from the middle of the crowd in one 
of the halls adjacent to that of the Tribunal, a cry of " Long 
live the King ! " — several times repeated. It was Madame 
de Lavergne " who wanted to he guillotined because they 
were going to murder her husband," as she declared to the 
officials before whom she was immediately led by the police. ^ 
She had suddenly become mad from grief. Questioned 
repeatedly, she could only say : "I have asked for a King. 
I want to be guillotined. They are going to murder my 
husband. I want to go to bed." And when her examina- 
tion was read, she declared that she no longer knew what 
they had asked her, or what she had answered. She was 
» Campardon, I. 287. » Archives Nationales, W. 342, dossier 643. 



AFTER DANTON'S DEATH 57 

placed on the benches for the prisoners. It was Grebeauval, 
the Public Prosecutor's deputy, who pleaded against her. 
She was condemned to death. Herman, icy and im- 
penetrable, presided over the sitting. 

The writ of indictment, which may be seen among the 
Archives, had been prepared by one of Fouquier's secre- 
taries ; but the Public Prosecutor had signed it, and added 
in the margin some notes, " some exact statements." Can 
it be said that he had no responsibility for the death of 
Madame de Lavergne, who was guillotined at the age of 
twenty-six for having tenderly loved her aged husband ? 

The consequences of Danton's death made themselves 
felt from the i6th of Germinal (April 5, 1794) onwards. 
It was necessary to keep the public mind occupied, to set 
pubHc opinion on the wrong track, to prove that the Con- 
spiracy existed, that it was not an invention of the pohce, 
that the patriots ran the greatest dangers, that they risked 
assassination. For this business the Committees of Public 
Safety and of General Security used one of their creatures 
whom they kept for some time in the house of detention of 
the Luxembourg. His name was Lafiotte, " an ex-Minister 
of the Republic of Florence." Lafiotte was a prison spy 
and an agent provocateur. It was he who lodged informa- 
tion against the Conspirators. He was the principal 
witness at the trial. On the proposal of Billaud-Varenne his 
declaration was read by a secretary at the Convention on 
the 15th of Germinal. It dealt with a plot contrived by 
certain prisoners at the head of whom were General Arthur 
DiUon and Deputy Philibert Simond. DiUon had written 
to the wife of Camille Desmouhns, offering her a thousand 
crowns to hire people, and to have the Revolutionary 
Tribunal surrounded during Danton's trial. Chaumette's 
wife had passed through the Luxembourg ; she had made 
signs of satisfaction to her husband by clapping her hands. 
DiUon claimed that in the Luxembourg prison there were 200 
men willing to do his bidding ; Simond that he had forty. 
The blow was to be struck at night. They would then go 
to the Committee of Public Safety, and " slaughter it." 



58 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

First of all, to collect the prisoners and fetch them out, the 
alarm would have to be given in the prison. DiUon charged 
himself with leading the armed force. He claimed that 
he had on his side the writer and a turnkey who would 
compel the officer of the guard to give the pass-word. The 
conspirators had admitted Laflotte into their secret. The 
spy " passed a very agitated night, fearing that Dillon 
might take it into his head to execute his plan in the middle 
of the night." He got up at dawn and hastened to com- 
municate with the Committee of Public Safety. 

It is an obscure affair. How much truth was there in all 
this ? Was the plot real ? The information laid by the spy 
Laflotte came at a singularly opportune moment during 
Danton's trial. A pretext had been found. This same 
pretext was to serve, during their trial before the Tribunal 
from the 21st to the 24th of Germinal, against Chaumette, 
the national agent of the Commune of Paris ; against Gobel, 
the renegade Bishop of Paris, "apostles of atheism"; 
against Arthur Dillon, the treacherous general ; against 
Deputy Philibert Simond, and against twenty-one other 
prisoners in the Luxembourg, among whom were Lucille, the 
pathetic young wife of Camille Desmoulins, and Hebert's 
widow. 

According to Fouquier-Tinville these prisoners, all of such 
different circumstances and origins, conspired together in 
the Luxembourg prison to replace the son of Louis XVI. 
on the throne of France. Their machinations were paid for 
by the Foreigner's gold. The Public Prosecutor saw in them, 
moreover, accomplices of Hebert and " of other conspirators 
already smitten by the sword of the Law." 

In the spring of 1794, a shudder of terror shook France 
to her foundations. Alarm was ever5rwhere. The " batches "^ 
were beginning. It was Saint- Just who denounced the 
slackness of the Provincial Tribunals. He carried the law 
of the 27th of Germinal {April 16). " Persons accused of 

1 Foiirnees, or batches of loaves for the oven, the name given to 
the groups of condemned persons tried at the same time and sent 
together to the guillotine. — Tr. 




PETER GASFAK CHAUMETTE 



WHOLESALE DENUNCIATIONS 59 

conspiracy will be brought before the Revolutionary Tri- 
bunal from all quarters of the Republic, The Committees 
of Public Safety and of General Security will promptly 
search out the accomplices of conspirators and cause 
them to be brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal." 
Denunciations were forwarded to the PubHc Prosecutor : 
denunciations voluntary and subsidised, made " in the 
name of the liberty and happiness of the French 
people " ; denunciations of servants against their masters, 
of clerks against their employers, of deserted women 
against their lovers, of debtors against their creditors, 
and vice versa, of soldiers against their officers. Billaud- 
Varenne, in his report to the Convention on the ist of 
Floreal, depicts in blazing lines a project for national 
regeneration by means of the guillotine : " Vigorous action 
is necessary. . . . The inflexible austerity of Lycurgus 
became at Sparta the immovable foundation of the Republic ; 
the weak and trusting character of Solon plunged Athens 
again into slavery. . . , This parallel contained the 
whole science of government. . . . The pretensions 
of Prussia and of England vanished with Brissot, Carra, 
Hebert, Danton, and Fabre d'Eglantine. . . ." War 
continued, however. Armies and generals were needed. 
Billaud-Varenne drew an " enchanting " picture of a France 
regenerated by virtue and justice that had been made the 
order of the day : instruction made universal ; purification 
of heart ; egoism destroyed ; no more beggary ; no more 
hospitals ; charity bestowed in the dwellings ; work for 
aU ; well-being for all ; the triumph of citizenship and 
sensibility.^ 

On that day the Revolutionary Tribunal tried a large 
"batch " of twenty-five former members of the Parlements 
of Paris and of Toulouse, Lepeletier-Rosambo, Bourree- 
Corberon, Bochart de Saron, Mole de Champlatreux, Lefebvre 
d'Ormesson, Pasquier, etc. They were accused of having 
protested against the decrees of the National Assembly. 
They appeared before " solid " jurors who were not " gentle- 
'^ Moniteur of 2nd. of Floreal, year II. 



6o THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

men " as they were — Gravier, the vinegar-seller, Brochet, 
the ex-lackey, Trinchard, the ex-dragoon and carpenter, 
etc. 

Among the accused was Henry Guy SaUier, a former 
President of the Cour des Aides. " You are mistaken," he 
protested, " for I was not a member of the Parlement, but 
a President of the Cour des Aides. The matter has to do 
with my son, Guy Marie SaUier, a Councillor in the Parle- 
ment." His protest was in vain. He was guillotined. There 
was even an error regarding his person. At his examina- 
tion, which took place in Fouquier's presence, he had 
declared that his name was Henry Guy SalHer and not Guy 
Marie. Fouquier had in his hands all the documents relating 
to the matter. He was not present at the actual trial, 
his deputy, Gilbert Liendon, pleading in his stead. But 
it is none the less true that Fouquier had carelessly issued a 
warrant for the arrest of the father instead of the son, and 
had equally carelessly drawn up his indictment against the 
father. 

Later, at Fouquier's trial, Sallier's son came forward to give 
evidence. His declaration was clear.^ It should be noted 
that on this ist of Floreal, Fouquier wrote to Hanriot, the 
commander of the armed forces of Paris, to teU him that 
" the verdict will be given at three o'clock." ^ Was he 
then sure of it beforehand ? It must be noted, finally, that 
the farewell letter of Honore Rigaud, one of the Parhamen- 
tarians of Toulouse, written to his wife at the moment 
when he was starting for the scaffold, was never sent to the 
address it bore. It is still to be found in the bundle of papers 
pertaining to the Tribunal preserved among the Archives.^ 
It is a sad letter, full of noble resignation, in which the 
unhappy man forgives his enemies, begs his family not to 
attempt to avenge his death, and sends to his wife and 
children his last thoughts. Fouquier-Tinville did not take 
the trouble to forward it. Herman had ceased to be Presi- 
dent of the Tribunal some days before. In reward for his 

* See page 244. ^ Archives Nationales, A. F. II., 48, No. 200. 

" Archives Nationales, W. 121, piece no. 




JOHN MAY ROLAND DE LA PLATIERE 



FOUQUIER'S VIOLENCE 6i 

attitude during Danton's trial, he had, on the 19th of 
Germinal, been appointed Minister of Justice in succession 
to Pare. Dumas, the Vice-President, had succeeded him 
as President. Fouquier was on bad terms with Dumas, 
a notorious drunkard, whom the Public Prosecutor spoke 
of as his " mortal enemy." Fouquier's position became 
difficult. Watched closely by the Committees, detested by 
his President, he often gave vent to sudden bursts of anger 
against his secretaries and the jurors.^ His violent character 
and his overbearing temperament were ill adapted to the 
hmitations of his office. 

Herman, however, thought that " the law gave too 
much power to the Public Prosecutor and did not allow to 
the Tribunal so much supervision as was desirable." He 
considered that " Fouquier did his work somewhat in the 
style of a Procurator. "^ This ex-Procurator was impa- 
tient with the caprices of Dumas, with the abrupt, incoherent 
manner in which the presiding judge conducted the pro- 
ceedings, and interrupted and silenced the accused. He 
opposed him ; he insisted that certain witnesses should 
be heard. These two magistrates were in constant rivalry. 

However, business kept coming in on all sides. On the 
5th of Floreal (April 24) thirty-five inhabitants of Verdun 
were placed in the dock. They were charged with having 
given up Verdun to the King of Prussia. Several of them 
were old men of seventy, seventy-two, seventy-five, and 
seventy-six years of age. There were young girls, two of 
whom, Claire Tabouillot and Barbe Henry, were only 
seventeen. 

These last were not condemned to death, but to twenty 
years' detention and to exposure on the scaffold for six 
hours.2 On the 6th of Floreal (April 25), Anisson Duperron, 

1 He was snappish, and rough to the jurors. One day as he was 
coming away from a hearing, he said to them, " How could you 
declare that that man was guilty ? He was not even brought to 
plead." On other occasions he would burst into a rage against them 
because they had acquitted. 

2 Archives Nationales, W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 78. 

3 Archives Nationales, W. 352, No. 718. 



62 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

the Director of the National Printing Office of the Louvre, 
was condemned to death. His magnificent estate of Ris 
became the property of the nation. Very generous in his 
district of Ris (re-named Brutus), he died the victim of an 
abominable attempt at blackmailing on the part of the 
Mayor and some other inhabitants who were jealous of his 
immense fortune. On the gth of Floreal (April 28) Fouquier 
mistook two accused persons for one. And this fact tends 
to justify Herman's criticism when, as a witness in Fouquier's 
trial, he affirmed ' ' that personally he regarded him as a bit of 
a blunderer, that is to say that his office was not orderly 
enough," and that " the Tribunal had often reprimanded 
him for want of accuracy and precision in his writs of indict- 
ment. "^ The two accused persons who were mistaken for 
one on this 9th of Floreal were Pichard-Dupage and Ohvier- 
Despallieres. Their names were mixed up into Pichard- 
Despallieres. In the " batch " for this day ^ there figured 
Denis Francois Angram d'Alleray, a former civil lieutenant 
at the Chatelet. He had rendered some services to Fouquier 
when he was a Procurator at the Chatelet. The Public 
Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal remembered the 
debt of gratitude contracted by the Procurator before the 
Revolution, He told Citizen Angram to deny everything.^ 

The latter was charged with having sent assistance to one 
of his children who had emigrated. He did not deny the fact, 
but openly declared : " I know the law. It forbids aU com- 
munication with the emigrants. But the laws of nature 
take precedence over the laws of the Republic." He was 
guillotined. 

On the same day Fouquier asked the Committee of Pubhc 
Safety for a remuneration of from fifteen to twenty thousand 
livres for Sanson, the public executioner. The Committee 
granted twenty thousand livres.'*' 

Among others brought before the Tribimal during Floreal 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 78. 

2 Archives Nationales, W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 78. 

3 Campardon, I., p. 312. 

♦ Archives Nationales A.F., 22, dossier 69, p. 81. 



MADAME ELISABETH 63 

were soldiers, sans-culottes , drunkards, cabmen, national 
guards, vine-growers, milliners, dressmakers, men of the 
Court and of the people, artisans and peasants. The grounds 
of offence were seditious cries, and, above all, that of " Long 
live the King ! " which continually issued from the mouths 
of the humble as the supreme expression of their misery and 
despair. On the 13th and 14th of Floreal the accused con- 
sisted of officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers 
of the battalions of the National Guard of the districts of the 
Filles-Saint-Thomas and of the Petits-Peres. On the 15th 
of Floreal, of aristocrats and sans-culottes guilty of counter- 
revolutionary utterances. On the i6th of Floreal, there was 
Claude Fran9oise Loisillier, " a maker of millinery," who 
had stuck up royalist placards on the walls in her district. 
Two other women, a hairdresser and a milhner, appeared in 
the dock with her. They were tried and condemned to death 
for seditious cries. A cook was acquitted. She, it appears, 
had not acted " knowingly." On the 17th of Floreal, there 
were " batches " of eleven and of thirteen accused persons ; 
on the i8th, " batches " of eighteen and of seven ; on the 
19th, Lavoisier and the Farmers-General (to the number of 
twenty-eight). They were charged with falsifying their 
accounts ; but this crime did not involve appearance before 
the Revolutionary Tribunal. A plot had accordingly been 
trumped up. In reality it was their property that was 
desired. They offered two millions out of this property. 
They defended themselves in long, carefully prepared, and 
very circumstantial Memorials. It was lost labour. There 
was no time to take account of them. Speed was necessary. 
Fouquier-Tinville had made out his writ of indictment, and 
they were condemned to death. ^ 

On the 2ist of Floreal Madame Elisabeth was brought 
before the Tribunal with twenty-three other prisoners, 
including four members of the de Lomenie family (Fran9ois, 
Charles, Athanase, and Martial) . Fouquier-Tinville affirmed, 
at the time of his trial, that he wished to divert the argu- 
ments, and to save Athanase de Lomenie, a former Minister 
^ Archives Nationales, W. 358 to 362. 



64 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

of War. " Imbued with veneration and respect for the ex- 
Minister," he said, " I had arranged to turn to account all 
that was memorable and advantageous for that worthy 
ex-Minister ; but, having foreseen my laudable intentions, 
Liendon, my deputy, anticipated me at the hearing ; he 
arranged to have the case tried before my arrival at the 
Tribunal, and I was not able to fulfil my good intentions." 
Then followed a eulogy of M. de Lomenie, whose virtues 
he proclaimed, which brought upon him this reply from 
Cambon, one of the deputies of the Public Prosecutor. 
" I hold in my hand the writ of indictment presented by you 
and signed by you against Lomenie." Cambon read this 
document and said : " You have just made a very pompous 
and well-merited eulogy on Lomenie, the ex-Minister, and 
yet in your writ of indictment you make it out a crime that he 
captured votes to become the Mayor of his district, and that 
he asked for petitions from neighbouring districts. Why, 
then, do you shelter yourself to-day under his quaUties in 
order to excuse a conviction that your eulogies now deny ? 
Did your heart formerly deny what your mouth utters 
to-day." We do not possess Fouquier's answer.^ 

If we are to beUeve Madame Elisabeth's defender, Chau- 
veau-Lagarde, Fouquier-Tinville was so perfidious as to 
deceive him by assuring him that her trial would not take 
place so soon, and he refused him authority to confer with 
her. On the following day, her lawyer saw her in the 
dock, and in a prominent position.- Fouquier had been 
present at her examination. He was not present at the 
hearing of the case. It was Gilbert Liendon who occupied 
his place, and Dumas who presided. The beginning of the 
indictment is written in Fouquier's hand : " Elisabeth Capet, 
sister of Louis Capet, the last t5Tant of the French, aged 
thirty, born at Versailles." The document is in Fouquier's 
style. He revised and signed it. This document lays it 
down that " it is to the family of the Capets that the people 

^ Buchez and Roux, XXXIV., p. 441. 

* Chauveau-Lagarde ; Note historique sur les procks de Marie- 
Antoinette et de Madame Elisabeth, p. 50, 



BLANK DEATH WARRANTS 65 

owe all the evils under the weight of which they have groaned 
for so many centuries. It is at the moment when excess of 
oppression has forced the people to break their chains that 
all the members of this family united to plunge them into a 
state of slavery more cruel than that from which they were 
trying to emerge. The crimes of all kinds, the wicked deeds 
heaped up by Capet, by the Messalina, Antoinette, by the 
two brothers Capet, and by Elisabeth, are too well known 
to make it necessary again to paint here the horrible picture ; 
they are written in letters of blood in the annals of the Revo- 
lution, and the unheard-of atrocities perpetrated by the bar- 
barous emigrants or the sanguinary satellites of the despots, 
the murders, the incendiaries, the ravages, and, finally, the 
assassinations, unknown to the most ferocious monsters, 
which they commit on French territory, are still ordered by 
this detestable family in order to deliver a great nation to 
the despotism and fury of a few individuals. Elisabeth has 
participated in all these crimes." 

The document is well known, and it is not necessary for us 
to reproduce it in its entirety. It is interesting to note that a 
blank death warrant must have been signed. In the original, 
which may be seen at the Archives, a considerable space 
separates the text of this warrant from the formula, " given 
and delivered," followed by the signatures of the judges. 
Many other warrants at this period show the same 
irregularity. 

On the 25th of Floreal, Madame Douet, who appeared as a 
witness at the trial of her husband, Jean Claude Douet, an 
ex-noble and Farmer-General, was placed among the 
accused and guillotined along with them.^- 

On the 26th of Floreal, Freteau (Emmanuel Marie Michel 
Philippe), ex-Councillor of theParlement of Paris, was brought 
before the Tribunal among a " batch " of prisoners, and 
acquitted, but detained in prison. Fouquier caused him to 
appear again before the Tribunal on the 26th of Prairial 
when he was condemned to death. This affair will be dealt 
with in the following chapter. 

^ Archives Nationales, W. 365, dossier 309. 

E 



66 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

The connection between the Committee of PubHc Safety, 
the Revolutionary Tribunal, and the Prosecutor became 
closer and closer. The popular tribunals and commis- 
sions sent every day to the Committee of PubUc Safety a hst 
of all the judgments given, so that the Committee might 
identify the persons tried and the nature of the cases. At 
the beginning of each decade ^ the Prosecutor sent in a memo- 
randum of the business which he proposed to bring before 
the Tribunal in the course of the decade. Masses of 
papers arrived daily. The " nature " of some allowed of no 
delay, " owing to the character of the evidence," On the 
other hand, some presented " obstacles." The former went 
through as urgent ; the latter waited. Often also " the 
business" was ready, but the accused persons had not arrived 
from the provinces, or the ushers had not found them in 
the prisons of Paris. At the last moment Fouquier filled 
up the vacancies in his own fashion from the hst approved 
of by the Committee of Public Safety, and thus caused 
terrible blunders. But the important thing was that the 
Tribunal must not be idle. 

The indefatigable Pubhc Prosecutor coped with this 
crushing task. Every day eighty to ninety letters left his 
office. 2 Thierriet-Grandpre, a witness who came forward 
to give evidence at Fouquier-Tinville's trial, saw " a heap 
of letters and memoranda addressed to him by accused 
persons, which he neglected to open and which he took into 
his office without breaking the seals." Those letters can be 
read to-day by anyone who looks through the papers of the 
Revolutionary Tribunal among the Archives. Poor old 
papers, moving and pathetic, pages for the most part 
dictated by anguish, yet in a respectful or flattering tone, 
or a touch of famihar sans-culottisme ! Most of them 
plead on behalf of their \\Titers. Some intercede for a 
husband or a wife ; some want to know the prison in 

' In the Revolutionary Calendar a period of ten days, called a 
decade, was substituted for the week of seven days. — Tr. 

^ Fouquier's declaration at his trial. Buchez and Roux, XXXIV., 
p. 310. 



A TERRIBLE CORRESPONDENCE 67 

which there is some dear one who has been arrested. Some 
hideous letters grovel and lodge informations. Some ask 
for places. Some are from prisoners who are ill and beg 
for attention. Some, such as those of Claire Tabouillot and 
of Barbe Henry, the young girls of Verdun who were con- 
demned to twenty years' detention, but who escaped death, 
express " eternal gratitude " to Fouquier ; but at the same 
time they entreat the Public Prosecutor to give orders for 
their repatriation. One feels that they are still far from being 
reassured. A certain number appeal to Fouquier' s humanity, 
but in a tone that recalls Chabot's prayer to Robespierre 
on the 4th of Frimaire, from the Luxembourg prison : " You 
who love patriots, deign to remember that you have num- 
bered me on their list." Finally, some are full of sincere 
cordiality towards the man who has done them a service. 

Evidently, the Pubhc Prosecutor had not time to read 
all those letters or to answer them. His day's work 
would not permit it. Every evening he went to the 
Committees of General Security and of Pubhc Safety. 
Sometimes he did not get home until five o'clock in the 
morning. Very often he had not three hours' sleep, and, 
in order that he might be at his post without delay, a decree 
of the 2nd of Prairial granted him a suite of rooms in the 
Palace of Justice.^ 

^ Archives Nationales, AF. 22, dossier 69, p. 90. 



CHAPTER III 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE AND THE CONSPIRACIES IN THE PRISONS 

ON the 4th of Prairial in the year II., at half-past 
one o'clock in the morning, as he was going up 
the staircase into his dwelling, No. 4, Rue Favart, 
Deputy CoUot d'Herbois found himself confronted 
by a man who attacked him, shouting out : " This is your 
last hour ! " and two pistol shots were fired at him. The 
first missed fire. Collot, throwing himself backward, avoided 
the second. His walking-stick fell. He leant down to pick 
it up. The man bounded upstairs, A door closed on the 
sixth floor. It was there that the assailant lodged. 

The Deputy's housekeeper, Suzanne Prevot, who, when 
she heard her master knock, had come down with a light, 
was standing, candle in hand, in front of the door of the flat, 
on the fourth floor, ready to open the outer door. She saw a 
man pass by her, with a pistol in each hand, which he kept 
lowered close to his thighs. She heard the cry and the report 
of the pistol. She rushed into the flat, opened a window, 
and shouted into the courtyard : "It is Admiral ! " 

The outer door of the house remained open. Collot 
d'Herbois shouted into the night, " Help, they are shooting 
me ! " A patrol of the Lepelletier Section was passing through 
the square in front of the theatre.^ The citizens saw the 
Representative of the people, bare-headed and gesticulating. 
Immediately three of these brave men entered the house 
and resolutely climbed the stairs. They were neighbours, 
belonging to the Rue Favart station, Nicolas Eloi Horgne, 
an architect and corporal of the guard; Frangois Bion, a 
barber ; and Geffroy, a locksmith. 

The man was barricaded in his room, and heard them com- 
1 The National Op6ra-Comique. 
68 



AN ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION 69 

ing to arrest him. He shouted : " Come on, scoundrels, 
and I wiU kill you." They struck at his door. CoUot 
d'Herbois went up with them, and, as he wanted to go in first, 
armed with a sabre that a volunteer had lent him. Citizen 
Geffroy prevented him. He seized him by the arm, and 
said to him : "I order you, in the name of the people, to 
remain here. I shall either perish or place the assassin in 
the hands of the Section. When virtues are the order of 
the day, the first thing to do and doubtless the most useful 
to the country is to relieve the soil of liberty of such a 
monster." 

The door opened, A shot was fired. Geffroy, the lock- 
smith, was struck by a bullet, which passed through his 
right shoulder. The assailant was overpowered and led to 
the poUce-station in the Rue Favart, where he was searched. 
In his pockets were found three bad coins, two of two sous, 
one of one sou, four leaden bullets wrapped in two pieces 
of paper, one of them being a pass dated the 27th of 
Ventose, made out in the name of Admiral, and a pair 
of spectacles. 

A small, solidly-built man with a stern face, he was 
perfectly calm. " There was austerity in his attitude." ^ 

His answers were clear, and given in a firm tone, in the 
cheerful, musical accent of his province. He came from the 
Puy-de-D6me, and was a native of Auzolette in the Issoire 
district. His name was Henri Admiral, " a former employee 
in the former lotteries." 

On the previous day he had waited for four hours at the 
Committee of Pubhc Safety to assassinate Robespierre. 
Not being successful in this, he had determined to assassinate 
CoUot d'Herbois. He was very sorry that he had failed. It 
would have been a fine day's work for him. All France 
would have admired him. He regretted that he paid ninety 
livres for a pair of pistols that missed fire. 

Fouquier-Tinville was informed at once, and immediately 
sent to Dumas, the President of the Tribunal, the following 
letter : — 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 389, dossier 904. 



70 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

" Paris, this 4th of Prairial of the Second Year of the 
Repubhc, one and indivisible. 

" Citizen and President, 

" I have the honour to send to the Convention a 
memorandum, drawn up to-night, which states that a man 
named Admiral conceived the frightful project of assass- 
inating Citizens Robespierre and Collot d'Herbois ; that all 
day yesterday he traversed the terrace of the Feuillants and 
the approaches to the Committee of Public Safety in order 
to reach Citizen Robespierre ; that about half-past one 
to-night, as he lodged in the same house as Citizen 
Collot d'Herbois, this madman waited on the staircase, 
and at the moment when Citizen Collot d'Herbois was going 
up to his flat, fired at him a pistol shot which happily 
miscarried and thus saved his life. 

" As soon as I was informed of this outrage, I had the 
murderous rufhan brought to the Conciergerie, and I propose 
to have him tried to-morrow at two o'clock. Greeting and 
fraternity. 

" A. O. FOUQUIER, 

" Public Prosecutor of the 

Revolutionary Tribunal." ^ 

At nine o'clock in the morning, Dumas, accompanied 
by Girard, the registrar's clerk, questioned Admiral at the 
Palace of Justice. The prisoner answered simply and without 
evasion. He had been a messenger in the offices of the royal 
lottery ; he had then been employed in Minister Bertin's 
house. He had served in Champagne as a volunteer in 
the sixth Paris battalion. He had left the Filles-Saint- 
Thomas battahon. Dumas asked him who had given him 
his appointment at the lottery. It was the Marquis de 
Manzuy, the Emperor's chamberlain and Director of the 
Brussels lottery. He saw him for the last time on October 
6, 1789, with his wife, on the road from Versailles to Paris. 
Why had he brought pistols ? For the crime committed 
yesterday. What was his design ? To assassinate Collot 
* Archives Nationales, W. 389, dossier 904. 



4 



ROBESPIERRE'S ESCAPE 



71 



d'Herbois and Robespierre. He had carried the pistols 
for three days in order to use them at the first opportunity. 
On the previous day he had gone out at nine o'clock in 
the morning. He had gone to the Rue Saint-Honore, and 
had spoken to a fruiterer, asking him at what time Robes- 
pierre went to the Committee. " Ask at the back of the 
courtyard. He lives there," the woman had answered. He 
took ten steps in the courtyard and met a volunteer with 
his arm in a sling, and a citizeness. They told him that 
Robespierre was engaged, and that he could not speak to 
him. He went away. If he had met the tyrant he would 
have accomplished his design. 

From there he had gone to Roulot's, a restaurant at the 
end of the terrace of the Feuillants, where he had lunched, 
and then to the Convention, to the gallery. He had fallen 
asleep there. At the end of the sitting he had stationed 
himself in the gallery that leads to the Committee of Public 
Safety. Under the pretext of going for news, he had gone 
to the outer door of the Committee, where he had waited for 
Robespierre in order to assassinate him. It was in vain. 
He then stationed himself in the vestibule that separates 
the Hall of the Convention from that of the Committee. 
Some deputies passed through. He asked their names. 
They were not those whom he sought. He then went 
out. 

He went to the Cafe Marie and to the Cafe Gervoise, 
where he played draughts with a young man. He supped 
at Dufie's eating-house at the comer of the Rue Favart. 
At eleven o'clock he went home. He waited until CoUot 
d'Herbois came back. The rest was known. 

Dumas asked him a last question in regard to the 
sums of money " over and above his known resources " 
which he had paid for his daily expenses. Those sums, he 
said, were the result of his savings and of the sale of his 
goods.^ 

Without losing time Dumas drew up the following 
note : — 

^ Archives Nationales, W. 339, dossier 904. 



72 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

" Admiral's Attempt. 

' ' It appears that the affair of the assailant of Robespierre 
and Collot d'Herbois ought to be investigated in the follow- 
ing respects : 

" I. By all possible means to drag from the monster 
confessions which can throw light upon the conspiracies ; 

"2. To consider this crime in its relations with foreign 
countries and with the conspiracies of Hebert, Danton, and 
aU those that took place in the prisons ; 

"3. To gain information as to his relations with persons 
who have belonged to or who may belong to the conspiracies ; 

" 4. Especially to gain information concerning the places 
he has been in and the persons he has associated with for 
the past fifteen days, and of the conversations in which 
he has engaged ; 

"5. To gain information how it is that, being fifty years 
of age and having a situation, he went into Champagne 
with the sixth Paris battalion ; how he behaved there, how 
and why he left the said battalion, and what his relations 
there were ; 

"6. Whether he had been a guard at the Temple, and, if so, 
whether anything had been noticed in his conduct there ; 

"7. To seek to discover whence the pistols came, and to 
know why a gun had been given to him by preference." ^ 

An actual conspirator had thus been taken. Admiral's act 
belonged to the vast conspiracy which Dumas and Fouquier- 
Tinville were investigating. He was, doubtless, an agent 
of the Foreigner, along with de Batz, the unseizable de Batz, 
the terror of the Committees ; de Batz who had attempted 
to save Louis XVI. during the passage from the Temple to the 
scaffold, and who had tried to bring about the escape of Marie 
Antoinette ; de Batz who at the height of the Terror walked 
about Paris, had five or six lodgings, and, when they came 
to arrest him, had gone from the place some moments before, 
leaving his bed still warm.^ 

1 The gun which had been given to him three months before by 
his captain at the Lepelletier Section. 

* Campardon, Le Tribunal R6volutionnaire, I., p. 363. 



"PITT'S GOLD" 73 

CoUot d'Herbois had been brought close to death by Pitt's 
gold and royalist conspiracies. But " the destiny of the 
Republic watched over his Ufe," as Barere said to the 
excited and cheering members of the Convention. " This 
time we have not to deplore the loss of a citizen nor to open 
the doors of the Pantheon . . . d'Herbois, the people's 
representative, is amongst you." ^ 

That same evening, whilst Fouquier-Tinville, after a day 
spent in investigations among the persons with whom 
Admiral associated, was studying the report drawn up by 
two commissioners of the committee of surveillance of the 
Lepelletier Section, a young girl, Cecile Renault, presented 
herself at the house of Duplay, the carpenter, where Maxi- 
milien Robespierre lived, saying that she had been three 
hours looking for him. 

It was nine o'clock. Duplay' s eldest daughter answered 
that the Deputy was absent. Cecile Renault showed ill- 
humour at this, and took an offended tone. She was sur- 
prised that he was not at home. His duty as a public offi- 
cial was to answer all those who came to see him. Suspicions 
were aroused ; the Committee of General Security was not 
far away, and she was taken there. On the way, she declared 
flatly that when people presented themselves at the King's 
dwelUng under the old regime they were allowed to 
enter at once. She was asked if she would prefer to have a 
king. She answered : "I want a king, because I prefer 
one tyrant to fifty thousand." The Committee had her 
searched. There were found on her only two small knives 
with tortoiseshell and ivory handles ; but she spoke 
in an excited fashion, and was locked up in the Concier- 
gerie.2 

The commissioners of the section immediately went 
to her house. Her father was anxiously awaiting her. 
They searched the young girl's room. " We found there," 
wrote the commissioners, " above her bed, a sort of banner 
on which is printed a large crown surrounded with fieurs 

^ Moniteur of the 5th Prairial, year II. 

" Archives Nationales, W. 389, dossier 904. 



74 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

de lys and on which there is a cross of silver paper." Renault, 
the father, and all his family were arrested. 

While investigations regarding the conspiracy were being 
made, Fouquier-Tinville was not idle. During this month of 
Prairial there were " batches " to be put on trial, " batches " 
that had come from the Departments, composed of people 
unacquainted with one another, aristocrats and sans-culottes, 
priests and ex-priests, notaries, notaries' clerks, traders, 
teachers, workmen and workwomen, accused of counter- 
revolutionary utterances and writings. The following are 
some examples from among the mass of those accused. 

On the 2nd of Prairial it was a teacher, Gabriel 
Delignon, who had received an anonymous letter com- 
promising him in a conspiracy, and who had brought it 
to the Commune. Death.^ — On the 3rd, a notary, Jarzoufflet, 
who had no confidence in the assignats (paper-money), and 
who had known a priest. Death.^ — On the 4th of Prairial, the 
day of Admiral's attempts, it was the woman Costard, who 
in despair at the fate of Boyer-Brun whom she loved, had 
given utterance to her grief in a letter to the Committee of 
General Security, ending with these words : " Strike, since 
I have lost my lover ; end a life that is odious to me and that 
I cannot endure without horror. Long live the King ! 
Long hve the King ! Do not beUeve that I am mad ; I 
am not ; I believe everything that you have just read, and 
I sign it with my blood." Death. ^ — On the 6th of Prairial, 
a fishmonger, his wife, and a washerwoman, Catherine 
Perard, were condemned to death. The two women were 
drunk and shouted, " Long hve the King ! " They were 
held to be aristocrats, although, according to Judge Masson's 
expression, " their external appearance was thoroughly 
sans-culotie." ^ On the 8th of Prairial, it was a dentist who 
said that he occupied himself with nothing but his business, 
and did not know what the National Convention was. Death. 

^ Archives Nationales, W. 369, No. 824. 
' Archives Nationales, W. 370, No. 832. 
^ Archives Nationales, W. 374, No. 835 
* Archives Nationales, W. 372, No. 840. 



THE REVOLUTIONARY CONSTITUTION 75 

— A navvy who shouted out, " Long live the King ! Long 
live the Queen ! " ^ etc., etc. 

On the 6th of Prairial, CoUot d'Herbois and Robespierre 
appeared at the Jacobin Club. There was a prolonged 
ovation, and they were welcomed " with transport." As 
soon as they entered the hall, " all eyes were fixed on those 
precious men ; all hearts leaped at once ; cheers of the 
keenest joy proved to them the amount of interest they 
inspired. . . . The God of free men watched over 
them. . . . The people had not to shed tears on their 
funeral urns." Robespierre spoke. " I am one of those 
whom the events that have taken place should interest least ; 
it is not, however, possible for me to refrain from dealing 
with them in their relation to the pubhc interest. . . . 
Frenchmen ! friends of equality ! leave it to us to employ the 
small amount of Hfe that Providence grants us in fighting the 
enemies that surround us. We swear by the daggers stained 
with the blood of the martyrs of the Revolution and 
recently sharpened against ourselves, to exterminate to the 
last those scoundrels who would rob us of happiness and 
liberty." ^ 

To " the plots of the Foreigner," Robespierre rephed by 
the law of the 22nd of Prairial (June 10, 1794). 

After having heard the report of the paralysed Couthon, 
" gentle in face and in language," the instrument of the 
Committee of Public Safety, the National Convention 
resolved : 

" Article I. — There shaU be in the Revolutionary Tribunal 
a President and three Vice-Presidents, a Public Prosecutor, 
four deputies for the Public Prosecutor, and twelve judges. 

" Article II. — The jurors shaU be fifty in number. 

" Article III. — These various functions shall be exercised 
by the citizens whose names follow : Dumas, President ; 
Cofiinhal, Scellier, Naulin, Vice-Presidents ; Fouquier- 
Tinville, Public Prosecutor ; his four deputies ; twelve 
judges, and fifty jurors. 

» Archives Nationales, W. 373. No. 843. 
* Moniteur, loth of Prairial, year 11. 



76 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

" Article IV. — The Revolutionary Tribunal has been 
established to punish the enemies of the people. 

" Article V. — The enemies of the people are those who 
seek to destroy pubhc Hberty, either by force or fraud. 

" Article VI. — Those are to be regarded as enemies of the 
people who shall promote the re-establishment of royalty, 
or seek to degrade the National Convention and the revolu- 
tionary and repubUcan government of which it is the centre, 
etc. 

" Article VII. — The punishment for aU offences that come 
within the scope of the Revolutionary Tribunal is death. 

" Article IX. — Every citizen has a right to seize con- 
spirators and counter-revolutionists, and to bring them before 
the magistrates ; he is bound to inform against them as 
soon as he knows them. 

" Article XVI. — The law gives patriotic jurors as defenders 
to patriots ; it does not grant them to conspirators." ^ 

In reality, there were to be no more preliminary investiga- 
tions, no more examinations, no more pleadings. The 
accused were to be at the mercy of the jurors. And it is 
known what the jurors were. Furthermore, not only were 
the accused refused a hearing at the preliminary investiga- 
tion before the trial, but they were not even to be examined 
at the pubhc hearing of the case. As an example, there was 
a case on the 6th of Messidor when three young Bretons 
of the Quimper district, Perron, Toupin, and Thomas 
Andre, were suspected of having amused themselves by 
cutting down the tree of Uberty at Banalec, on the day in 
October, 1793, on which they were summoned to join the 
colours. There was no real evidence against them. Mathieu 
Toupin and Corentin Perron were condemned to two years' 
deportation, Thomas Andre to a year's imprisonment by the 
Quimper tribunal. The moderation of these sentences was 
denounced to the Minister of Justice at Paris. The prisoners 
were sent before the Revolutionary Tribunal by decree of 
the Convention. 

They were condemned to death. The official report of 
1 Moniteur, 24th, Prairial, year II. 



FOUQUIER'S RECKLESSNESS tj 

the trial contains these words written by the registrar's 
clerk : " Note : It has been impossible to get the exact 
names of Perron, Andre, and Toupin, because they were 
from Lower Brittany and there were no interpreters." ^ 
This requires no comment. 

Fouquier's task was not simplified by the law of the 
month of Prairial. On the contrary, the mass of conspira- 
tors who had to be brought to trial increased to such an 
extent that the Public Prosecutor, forced to act quickly, 
no longer knew which way to turn. He would go into the 
office of the ushers whose duty it was to fetch the accused 
from the prisons, shouting and swearing, smashing the 
portfolios, threatening and frightening everybody. " If 
you don't make haste, I wiU lock you up. I will have you 
locked up," he would exclaim, and then shout out insults. 
Late in the evening after dinner the trembling clerks pointed 
out to him that they had not time to transcribe and serve all 
the indictments that he had ordered them to copy for the next 
morning. " Do as you Uke ! " he would answer. " There 
wiU always be enough of them ! Make haste ! Things 
must move ! " If the indictments were signed by him alone, 
and not by the judges, his clerks would point this out to him. 
"Go on," was the reply, "their signatures shall be obtained." ^ 

At first Fouquier had drawn up the indictments himself 
or in co-operation with his deputies. Then he had employed 
a clerk, and finally two. As the number of conspirators 
increased the more they were guillotined, Fouquier became 
too much occupied, and left the task of drawing up the 
indictments to his clerks.^ He contented himself with 
signing his name at the bottom of each page, adding 
some words on the margin or rectifying the text here 
and there. This is why we can prove to-day (his deputy 
Cambon did so at Fouquier's trial) that these indict- 
ments are full of spaces between the Hues, erasures, 
unauthorised commitments, and blank spaces intended 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 395, No. 916, 2nd part, p. 78. 
^ Contat's evidence at Fouquier's trial. 
^ Toutain's evidence at Fouquier's trial. 



78 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

for the names of a greater number of victims, and that no 
trouble had been taken to cancel these. Names of accused 
persons had been added, in a strange hand, to the indict- 
ments after they were drawn up. It is enough to open some 
of the bundles of papers relating to the Tribunal for the 
period comprised between the 22nd of Prairial and the gth 
of Thermidor to be convinced of all this. 

These documents were served on the interested parties 
only the day before the trial. Fouquier did not deny this at 
the time of his own trial. He said that he always gave 
orders to serve the writs of indictment in the evening. 
Chateau, his former secretary, contradicted him on this 
point, saying : "It often happened that at nine o'clock 
in the evening we did not know the names of those who 
would be put on trial the next day. How could we give 
them their writs of indictment that evening ? " ^ 

At the hearing, the accused were not given time to speak. 
And there was no one to defend them, for lawyers had no 
longer a right to do so. The President would ask a prisoner : 
" Did you do such and such a thing ? " On his negative 
or affirmative reply, the President would say : " Next." 
If the prisoner insisted, Dumas or Cofftnhal shouted at him. 
" You have no right to say any more. You have no right 
to say any more." ^ In order to exonerate himself Fouquier 
said : " That was the President's business, that did not 
concern me. I have pointed out several times to Dumas 
and Coffinhal that they did not give the accused enough 
latitude. I have had altercations with Dumas on this 
subject." But at Fouquier's trial, Berthaut,^ registrar of 
the Tribunal of the Theatre-Fran9ais Section, deposed that 
at the hearing of the affair relating to the conspiracy in the 
Carmelite prison, the Public Prosecutor (who was sitting 
that day) said to a witness for the defence : " Are not you 
and the prisoner both of the same Section ? " " Yes." 
Then Fouquier rejoined vehemently : "I have something 

* Chateau's evidence at Fouquier's trial. 
" Brunet's evidence at Fouquier's trial. 
3 Berthaut's evidence on the 2nd of Germinal in the year III. 



AQUITTAL A PUBLIC CALAMITY 79 

against you. You are of the same Section. You stand up 
for one another." And he prevented the witness from 
being heard further. 

The law of the month of Prairial had hardly been passed, 
when Fouquier, acting on the suggestion of Vadier, a member 
of the Committee of General Security, brought to trial 
eleven inhabitants of Pamiers, among whom were the two 
Darmaings (John Pierre Jerome, a lawyer, and Frangois, 
an ex-King' s-Advocate). Vadier came originally from 
Pamiers. He had a personal grudge against his compatriots. 
One of them, Cazes, had refused his daughter to Vadier's 
son. In two letters, one of the 4th of Prairial and the other 
of the 7th, Vadier had expressed to Fouquier the hope that 
they would be condemned. (" I point out to you that, if by 
any ill-fortune those men could be acquitted, it would be 
a public calamity.") The inhabitants of Pamiers were 
condemned to death on the 23rd of Prairial (June 11). ^ 

On the 26th of Prairial (June 14) a " batch " of thirty 
Parliamentarians from Paris and Toulouse, ^ appeared before 
the Tribunal for having, on September 25 and 27, 1789, pro- 
tested against the Acts of the National Assembly relating to 
the Parlements. There were no incriminating documents 
and no witnesses. The memorials drawn up by the prisoners 
had been left by Fouquier among the papers in the registrar's 
office. He had taken no account of them. All were 
condemned. Among them was Freteau, an ex-Councillor 
of the Parlement of Paris, who had been acquitted on the 
27th of Floreal. Fouquier had again seized him and sent 
him for trial. " Freteau," say Fouquier' s pleadings for the 
prosecution, " has shown himself to be an enemy of the 
people whose representative he was, and he has violated the 
laws, whose observance is of the utmost importance to the 
Empire, by confiding his son's education to a conspirator, 
to one of those men animated by the most cruel fanaticism, 
who had refused to take the oath due from every citizen 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 383, dossier 891. Among the con- 
demned, persons there was one, Larue, who was not even examined. 
'^ W. 386, dossier 897. 



8o THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

to the government under which he lives." ^ At the time 
of his trial Fouquier was rigorously taken to task on the 
subject of Freteau. It will be seen how he defended himself. 

On the 29th of Prairial (June 17) Admiral, Cecile Renault, 
her father, her brother, her aunt, and forty-nine other 
prisoners were brought before the Tribunal. All were con- 
victed of having made themselves ' ' the enemies of the people 
by participating in the conspiracy of the foreigner, and at- 
tempting, by assassination, famine, the fabrication and intro- 
duction of forged paper-money {assignats) and base coin, the 
depravation of morality and public spirit, and insurrections 
in the prisons, to promote civil war, to dissolve the national 
representation, to re-establish royalty, or any other tyran- 
nical domination." The hearing lasted only three hours. ^ 
The Tribunal condemned them all to the punishment of 
death, conformably with Articles 5,6, and 7 of the law of the 
22nd of Prairial, which it caused to be read to them. All were 
to be brought to the place of execution and put on the scaffold 
clothed in red shirts, as assassins of the Representatives of the 
people. Yet only one of them had committed an attempt 
at assassination. 

The execution of the fifty-four, who have been called the 
" red shirts," took place at four o'clock in the evening at the 
Barrier of Vincennes.^ 

Excluding Admiral, the fifty-three others who were con- 
demned might be regarded as conspirators, not as assassins. 
Why did Fouquier inflict on them the indignity of the red 
shirt ? At his own trial he answered this question. " Be- 
cause the sentence so provided," he said. But Cambon, 
the PubUc Prosecutor's deputy, denied this, and pro- 
duced the sentence. Fouquier continued : "I claim that 

1 A priest who had not taken the oath to the Civil Constitution of 
the Clergy. W. 386, dossier 897, p. 135. 

' Fouquier says five hours, but he was not sitting. 

^ On the 2ist of Prairial, the day following that of the Festival of 
the Supreme Being, the guillotine had been transported from the 
Place de la Revolution to tlie Place Sainte-Antoine in front of the site 
occupied by the old Bastille. On the 26th, at the request of the 
inhabitants of the district, it was transported to the Barrier of Vin- 
cennes. 



THE AFFAIR OF THE RED SHIRTS 8i 

this is a mistake of the registrar, for that was the sentence 
pronounced." He was contradicted by Hamy, an ex-judge 
of the Tribunal, charged along with him : "I point out that 
the Tribunal did not pronounce that sentence. I was 
astonished when I heard the order to have red shirts made, 
I made some remarks about it, but was told it had nothing 
to do with me." 

In reality, it was the Committee of Public Safety that had 
given this order to Fouquier-Tinville. 

The affair of " the red shirts " has often been related, 
and this is not the place to return to it. Let us only note that 
it is sufficient to examine the list of accused persons to have 
an idea of the strange " mixture " compounded by Fouquier. 
Admiral, the man of Auvergne, rubs shoulders with people 
of all conditions whom he certainly had never seen, such as 
Madame de Sainte-Amaranthe, her daughter, her son, and 
the Comte de Fleury. The latter had been imprisoned in 
the Luxembourg. There had been no question of an in- 
vestigation into his case. He went into the dock and was 
condemned for having written, on that day, the famous 
letter to Dumas : " Courage, men of blood, invent conspira- 
cies in order to send to the scaffold the remnant of honest 
men who, having nothing with which to reproach themselves, 
have remained passive beneath your blows. All my friends 
or intimate acquaintances, the Prince de Rohan, Bossan- 
court, Marsan, d'Hauteville, Lecuyer, etc., conspirators ! 
if ever they could have been that, join my name to theirs. 
Having always shared their opinions and their mode of life, 
I ought to undergo the same fate. You tremble, souls of 
mud, when you meet magnanimous courage which, fearing 
nothing, reproaches you in crying tones for the crimes of 
which you make yourselves guilty every day, by pronouncing 
judgments dictated by hatred and vengeance. Tremble, 
vile monsters, the moment is coming when you shall expiate 
your crimes. Signed : The ex-Comte de Fleury, a prisoner 
in the Luxembourg." Dumas had shown this letter to 
Fouquier, saying : " Look here ! read this billet doux, 
I believe this fine gentleman is in a hurry." " Yes," Fou- 



82 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

quier had answered, " he seems to me to be in a hurry, and 
I am going to send for him." He did send for him, and 
the Comte de Fleury was guillotined the same day. 

This study is concerned with the responsibility incurred 
by Fouquier-Tinville as Public Prosecutor, and not with the 
history of the Revolutionary Tribunal. It is not necessary to 
give here as fuU an account of the affair called " the conspira- 
cies in the prisons " as a complete statement of the matter 
would require. In the second part of this study the deposi- 
tions made in the inquiry after Thermidor will be repro- 
duced from the original papers preserved among the National 
Archives, and as the general effect of those depositions will 
enable us to understand Fouquier's activity in a vivid and 
striking manner, it seems sufficient to say here, in a few 
pages, what those conspiracies were, and what part was 
reserved for the Public Prosecutor by his chiefs. 

At the beginning of Messidor there were in Paris forty 
houses of detention, 1 aU of which were fuU. As new prisoners 
came continually from the Departments, it was necessary to 
find accommodation for them. Room was made by empty- 
ing the Paris prisons of some " lots " of prisoners who were 
sent to the Conciergerie, then to the Tribunal, and then to 
the scaffold. For this a motive, a pretext, was found in the 
Conspiracy of the Foreigner which gave rise to, ist, the 
Conspiracy in Bicetre (two " batches," one of 37 prisoners, 

^ M. Wallon gives, following Proussinalle (Histoire Secrete du 
Tribunal Revolutionnaire, I., p. 298), the list of the Paris prisons : 
La Grande Force, la Petite Force, Sainte-Pelagie, les Madelonnettes, 
I'Abbaye, les Capucins, Bicetre, la Salpetriere, la Mairie, le Luxem- 
bourg, la Bourbe, la Caserne, Rue de Vaugirard, Picpus, les Anglaises, 
Rue de Lourcine, les Anglaises, Faubourg Sainte-Antoine, les 
Ecossais, Saint-Lazare, la maison Belhomme, les Benedictins Anglais, 
le College du Plessis, la maison de Repression, la raaison Coignard, 
la maison Mallay, les Fermes, la caserne des Petits-Peres, la caserne. 
Rue de Sevres, la maison des Oiseaux, la caserne des Carmes, le 
College des Quatre-Nations, Montaigu, Port-Royal, maison Escour- 
biac, Hotel Talaru, Vincennes, maison Lachapelle, Hospice de 
I'Eveche, maison Brunet, les Anglaises, Rue Saint- Victor, maison 
Picquenot, Rue de Bercy, and la Conciergerie. One ought to add 
the dep6ts in the forty-eight sections. (Wallon ; Tribunal Revolu- 
tionnaire, IV,, p. 263.) 



THE PRISON CONSPIRACIES 83 

tried on the 28th of Floreal, the other of 37, tried on the 8th 
of Messidcr) ; 2nd, the Conspiracy in the Luxembourg (four 
" batches," the first of 60 prisoners, tried on the 19th of Mes- 
sidor in the Year II., the second of 50 prisoners, tried on the 
2ist, the third of 46, tried on the 22nd, and the fourth of 
18, tried on the 4th of Thermidor) ; 3rd, the Conspiracy in 
the Carmehte prison (49 prisoners, tried on the 5th of Thermi- 
dor) ; 4th, the Conspiracy in Saint-Lazare (three " batches," 
the first of 25 prisoners, tried on the 6th of Thermidor, the 
second of 26, tried on the 7th of Thermidor, and the third 
of 25, tried on the 8th of Thermidor). There were, finally, 
on the 9th of Thermidor, 25 prisoners at the hearing pre- 
sided over by Dumas, and 23 at that presided over by 
Scellier. We can see clearly now that the idea of these 
conspiracies was nothing but a most outrageous fabrica- 
tion. 

Their true fomenters and agents were the prison spies — 
Valagnos, Beausire, Benoit, Boyaval, Dupaumier, Verney, 
Guyard, Manini, Coquery, Jobert (the Belgian), and some 
others. In the second part of this study it will be seen that 
Fouquier had relations with those scoundrels. A good deal 
of evidence given at his trial agrees in saying that he made 
use of them, that he encouraged them. They were his 
auxiliaries and those of the Committee of General Security. 

It was Valagnos who invented the Bicetre conspiracy. 
Valagnos was an ex-house-painter, and ex-member of the 
Revolutionary Committee of the Chalier Section. He had 
been condemned to twelve years in chains for dishonesty in 
performing his duties as a commissioner of clothing. He 
had been imprisoned at Bicetre. He confided to one of his 
f ellow-prisoners 1 that he had " discovered a conspiracy, and 
hoped that this would shorten his twelve years in chains." 
In a first letter to his former committee, he denounced some 
prisoners who were convicts like himself. He represented 
them as determined to escape. This letter remained un- 
answered. He wrote another to the same committee, 
giving details. It was whilst going to the convict-prison, 
^ Guillot, a defender in the Tribunal. 



84 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

during the journey from Paris to Brest, that the escape would 
take place. The committee of the Section sent this second 
letter to the Committee of Public Safety, which forwarded it 
to Herman, the President of the Commission for the Adminis- 
tration of Civil Affairs, of Police, and of Tribunals. By a 
resolution of the Committee of Public Safety, passed on the 
25th of Prairial, the prisoners who had been denounced were 
brought before the Revolutionary Tribunal. The same 
resolution authorised the commission to bring before the 
Tribunal " all other individuals detained in the said house of 
Bicetre who might be suspected of having taken part in the 
plot." On the 26th, Lanne, Herman's assistant, went to 
Bicetre. Fouquier-Tinville accompanied him. Fouquier 
drew up a list, and sent it to Lanne with these words : 
" Citizen, enclosed is the account of the suspects found in 
our transaction. I request you to send me to-morrow, at 
ten or eleven o'clock at latest, all the documents of this busi- 
ness, in particular the resolutions." ^ On the 27th, Lanne 
copied out the list and sent it to Fouquier. He sent him at 
the same time the resolution passed by the Committee of 
Pubhc Safety on the 25th, and the Hst of prisoners whom that 
Committee was sending before the Revolutionary Tribunal. 
In all, there were thirty-seven prisoners who appeared before 
the Tribunal. Fouquier's writ of indictment affirms that 
the aim of this plot was " to overcome the citizens forming 
the armed force of the house of detention of Bicetre, to force 
the doors of the said house in order to go and kiU the Repre- 
sentatives of the people, members of the Convention's 
Committees of Public Safety and of General Security, to 
tear out their hearts, to cook and eat them, and to put to 
death the most conspicuous of them in a cask furnished with 
spikes." No witnesses were heard, with the exception of 
Valagnos, the convict. The thirty-seven Bicetre prisoners 
were condemned and executed. Fouquier, at his trial, said 
that they were criminals, that they were condemned to 
chains. A poor reason ! Had they conspired or not ? 
If they had only attempted to escape, they did not deserve 
* Archives Nationales, W. 500, ist dossier, p. 8. 



THE STATE OF THE PRISONS 85 

the guillotine. Brunet, the chief surgeon of Bic^tre, a 
witness at Fouquier's trial, said : " The conspiracy that the 
murderers have imagined is a falsehood, I will even say, a 
calumny. The law had seized the guilty. They ought, 
doubtless, to have undergone their punishment. But 
no power, at least unless a fresh crime had been proved, 
could strike beings who were expiating the punishment due 
to their crimes." Brunet, passing through the halls, the 
rooms, and the cells several times a day, doubtless knew what 
to think about the state of the prisons. And Deschamps, 
the treasurer, deposed that when they came to take away 
the prisoners in order to bring them before the Tribunal, 
one of them, aged 79, was so frightened that he wounded 
himself in the belly with his razor. 

On the 17th of Messidor, the Committee of Public Safety 
resolved that the commission over which Herman presided 
should make a daily report to the Public Prosecutor on 
the conduct of those detained in the different prisons of Paris. 
The Revolutionary Tribunal was bound, in conformity 
with the law, to try within twenty-four hours those who 
attempted to revolt or excited any ferment. ^ 

On the i8th, Fouquier wrote to Subleyras, the President 
of the Popular Commission, to the Museum (the Louvre) : 

" I send you herewith a list of the conspirators of the house 
of detention of the Luxembourg whom I propose to have 
put on trial to-morrow. I ask you in consequence to trans- 
mit to me all information you may possess about these 
individuals. "2 

On the same day he wrote to the Committee of Public 
Safety to inform them that he " would bring the conspira- 
tors of the Luxembourg to trial, the next day, in the Hall of 
Liberty." 

At eleven o'clock in the evening on that 18th of Messi- 
dor, whilst the prison was asleep and everything quiet, a 
considerable armed force invaded the large court-yard. 
There was an alarm. Calls were heard in the rooms, hurried 

1 W. 500, dossier 3, p. 79, and W. 501, dossier i, p. 55. 

2 W. 501, ist dossier, p. 45. 



86 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

footsteps on the stairs. A hundred and fifty-six prisoners 
were transferred to the house of justice, counted, and 
crowded together at the Conciergerie while waiting for the 
hour of the sitting. President Dumas had caused an enor- 
mous scaffolding ^ to be erected in the hall of the Tribunal, 
the benches of which rose as high as the cornices of the 
ceihng and filled a large part of the enclosure. It was on 
this scaffolding that he intended to place the conspirators 
of the Luxembourg. 

But that night Fouquier went to the Committee. He 
saw Collot d'Herbois, Billaud, Saint-Just, and Robespierre, 
and it was decided that instead of being tried in the mass 
(which might arouse too violent a feeling among the public) 
the hundred and fifty-six would be tried in three lots. The 
scaffolding was accordingly demolished. 

At nine o'clock in the morning of the 19th of Messidor, 
the prisoners of the first batch received their writs of 
indictment. At ten o'clock they entered the dock, to the 
number of sixty. At three o'clock they had all been tried 
and sent to the guillotine. Madame de Boisgelin, as she 
was leaving the Tribunal and crossing the court3^ard, 
said to those of the prisoners who had not been tried : " We 
have not been allowed to speak. It will be your turn 
to-morrow." ^ 

At this hearing there had been condemned Jean Dominique 
Maurin, " 47 years of age, born at Barcelonnette, in the 
department of the Basses- Alpes. Before the Revolution 
he had been a book-keeper to different merchants, and since 
then a steward of the Duchesse d'Estissac's estate at Halluin, 
and an agent of the ex-Marechale de Biron," says the judg- 
ment. Now the writ of indictment has : " Jean Dominique 
Morin, formerly quarter-master, aged 47 years, born at Barce- 
lonnette, in the department of the Basses- Alpes." The 

1 It is this scaffolding [echafaud) that M. Thiers confused with the 
guillotine in his Histoire de la Revolution Franqaise, 9th edition, 
Furne, 1839, p. 13S, when he says : " It was necessary to order 
Fouquier-Tinville a second time to remove the guillotine from the hall 
of the Tribunal." 

- Jobert's evidence at Fouquier's trial. 



THE BOGUS CONSPIRACIES 87 

accused man, hearing the statement for the prosecution 
read, and understanding that there was a mistake, protested : 
"It is not I." He was condemned. But Fouquier im- 
mediately claimed, ^ and the Tribunal ordered, that Louis 
Clerc Morin should also be brought to trial. The latter 
was guillotined three days after his namesake on the 22nd 
of Messidor. He formed part of the third " batch " from 
the Luxembourg. At Fouquier's trial a witness, Vauchelet, 
said that Morin " so far from being concerned in that 
alleged conspiracy, was not in the Luxembourg prison." 

On the 9th of Messidor, the Tribunal had heard only five 
witnesses. These were four police spies (Boyaval,^ Meunier, 
Verney, Benoit), and a turnkey of the Luxembourg, Lesenne. 
This latter declared that there had been no conspiracy. 
Fouquier immediately demanded his arrest. 

The Swiss porter of the Luxembourg, Nicolas Strahl, and 
others gave evidence afterwa-rds at Fouquier-TinviUe's 
trial that no conspiracy had existed in the prison, and that 
everything was calm. " Those conspiracies," he said, 
" have only existed in the public prints." 

A man who had a narrow escape was Jean Martin, a 
lawyer, included in the third " batch " of the alleged 
Luxembourg conspiracy, that of the 22nd of Messidor.^ He 

1 " The Public Prosecutor claims, and the Tribunal orders, that 
there be given him a memorandum of the verbal indictment brought 
by him against Morin." Archives Nationales, W. 409, dossier 941. 

2 Boyaval was, with Benoit, one of the great makers of the lists. 
A tailor and a lieutenant of light infantry, a narrow-minded, chatter- 
ing liar, Boyaval boasted that he was entrusted with making out the 
lists. Sometimes he said he had orders from the police officials, some- 
times from Robespierre, and sometimes from Fouquier. He went to 
the Tribunal to give evidence as a witness against those he had 
denounced. 

3 In the list of unfortunate beings taken off during the night be- 
tween the 1 8th and the 19th was found the name of Pierre Charles 
Machet-Velye, an ex-Comptroller of Buildings to Monsieur, the king's 
brother. Uncommunicative, always shut up in his room, living 
isolated, and perpetually occupied with a law-suit which he was 
carrying on against a former Procurator of the Parlement, Machet- 
Velye had received, in his prison, the news that he had won his suit. 
He was guillotined on the 22nd of Messidor as an accomplice in the 
conspiracy of Grammont, who had been executed four months before 



88 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

was acquitted, perhaps because he said that he had known 
" the project of making a scene in the prison which Gram- 
mont carried out in part." After Robespierre's fall, he sent, 
on the 13th of Thermidor, to the Committee of Public 
Safety a very curious report in which he described in a strik- 
ing manner the sitting of the Tribunal on the day when he 
appeared before it. Scelher presided. Royer deputised 
for Fouquier-Tinville. Boyaval, the spy, was the first 
to give evidence, then Verney, a turnkey at the Luxem- 
bourg and an active informer, then Benoit, another spy. 

Here, for instance, is a little dialogue between the Presi- 
dent and Goursault, one of the accused : 

The President : — " Why have you been arrested ? " — " I 
do not know." — The President : — " Are you noble ? " 
" No, I am a labourer's son." — The President : — " All 
right. We know the moral sense of an administrator of 
lotteries ; you say no more." 

his arrival at the Luxembourg ! (Cf. Real's evidence at Fouquier's 
trial.) 

On the 2ist of Messidor, fifty prisoners appeared before the 
Tribunal charged with taking part in the Luxembourg conspiracy ; 
this was the second " batch." One of the accused, Pierre Louis 
Moreau, an architect and a chevalier of Saint Louis, was a brother- 
in-law of the poet, Ducis ; the latter wrote the following letter to 
Fouquier to intercede with him on behalf of his relative : — 

" Paris, the 20th of Messidor of the year II. : Citizen, I do not sohcit 
your justice, that would be to insult your well-known integrity, 
but I yield to my wife's tears. The fate of her brother is to be 
decided to-morrow by the Revolutionary Tribunal : he is Citizen 
Moreau, formerly architect of the City of Paris. He has always 
been obedient and faithful to the laws of our country, he has paid all 
that was asked of him, in particular, thirty thousand francs for the 
war in La Vendee ; nothing against him has been found among his 
papers, on which official seals have been placed both in the city and 
the country. He was engaged in no plot ; before his detention he 
was farming an emigrant's land, for which he paid rent to the nation ; 
he is a good father, tenderly loved by his wife and daughters ; we 
hope, just and incorruptible citizen, that you will soon restore him 
to the arms and the eyes of us who are waiting for him. We are sure 
that you will bring his innocence into full light. Accept the assur- 
ance of my veneration and my entire confidence in your wisdom and 
virtue. Signed : Ducis, of the former French Academy." Archives 
Nationales, W. 93. Moreau was condemned to death. Campardon, 
I., p. 382. 



ROBESPIERRE AND THE CONSPIRACIES 89 

The examination of each of the forty-sLx prisoners was 
conducted in similar style. 

On the 2ist of Messidor, at the Jacobin Club, Robespierre 
returned to the affair of the conspiracies. He spoke of 
" the cabals secretly directed against the Revolutionary 
Government and the plottings of those traitors who are 
burning to sow dissension among the patriots." Accord- 
ing to him, the recent victory of Fleurus threatened to lead 
the public mind towards leniency. " It is natural to slumber 
after victory. . . . ''The true victory is that which 
the friends of liberty gain over the factions." It was neces- 
sary, therefore, that the extermination of the conspirators 
should continue. 

It was as a conspirator that Jean-Claude Pelchet, an 
architect and ex-Chief Inspector of Buildings to the King, 
appeared before the Tribunal, on the 25 th of Messidor, because 
a certain Dodin, who informed against him, declared that, 
during a journey they had made together from Versailles 
to Paris, the architect had expressed royalist sentiments 
opposed to the principles of the Revolution. Witnesses 
were not allowed him. Fouquier wrote to his deputy that 
their appearance did not seem to him indispensable, and that 
he ought to do all he could to prevent the prisoner's defence 
from being cut short. Fouquier' s note is among the papers 
relative to the case.^ 

Those sixteen Carmehte nuns of Compiegne were conspira- 
tors who were charged with fanaticism, together with Citizen 
Mulot de la Menardiere, a townsman of Compiegne and a 
very indifferent poet, who had sent counter-revolutionary 
verses to one of the nuns, his cousin. He was married. 
Fouquier, in his indictment, describes him as " a rebellious 
ex-priest," though he had never been a priest. In the writ of 
indictment he becomes " the chief of a counter-revolutionary 
assembly at Compiegne, of a sort of Vendean focus. His 
correspondence with those women who were subject to his 
will gives evidence of the counter-revolutionary sentiments 
that animated him, and one sees in it especially that pro- 
1 Archives Nationales, W. 414, No. 949, 3rd part. 



90 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

found knavery familiar to those hypocrites who are accus- 
tomed to give out that their own passions are the rule 
established by Heaven's will."^ Documents were produced 
against him which were not in his writing. Fouquier had 
no longer sufficient time to identify documents. 

All the nuns were sentenced to death, even those against 
whom there was nothing, even the two non-cloistered sisters. 

On the ist of Thermidor (July 19, 1794), three generations 
of the same family were in the dock. This was what 
Fouquier called " the Magon conspiracy," comprising J. B. 
Magon de la Balue, a merchant and an ex-noble, 81 years of 
age ; Luc Magon de Labelinaye, a merchant and an ex-noble, 
80 years of age ; Erasme Charles Auguste Lalande Magon, 
his son ; Frangoise Magon, his daughter, Saint-Pern's wife ; 
Saint-Pern ; Frangois Joseph Cornuher, twenty-two years 
of age, and his wife (the same age) ; AmeHe Laurence Celeste, 
Saint-Pern's daughter — and others. Saint-Pern's son, aged 
seventeen, was brought before the Tribunal. He protested, 
told his age ; his sister and his mother confirmed his state- 
ments. Then Dumas declared : " Citizen jurors, you see that 
he is conspiring at this very moment, for he is more than 
seventeen years old." ^ He was condemned ; but the fact 
that he was seventeen years of age was allowed to remain in the 
sentence. It was his father against whom the indictment 
was directed. Here Fouquier' s responsibiUty was directly 
involved. The indictment read : " No. 5, Saint-Pern — 
without Christian names or descriptions ; No. 6, Saint-Pern's 
wife." 3 In the questions propounded to the jury, we read : 
" No. 5, Jean Baptiste Marie Bertrand Saint-Pern, aged 
seventeen, a native of Rennes, residing at Paris, an ex-noble, 
without occupation." The Christian names and the rest 
were added afterwards. The writ of indictment aimed at 
the father, but with such lack of precision was it drawn that 
it was the son who was condemned ! This was a criminal 
irregularity. But there was more to come. The daughter, 

1 W. 421, No. 956, p. 125. 

» Ducray's evidence at Fouquier's trial. 

» Archives Nationales, W. 423, No. 958, 2nd part, p. 41. 



MADAME CORNULIER'S ESCAPE 91 

young Saint-Pern's sister, was condemned on the indict- 
ment made out against her father. Fouquier's responsibility 
is still graver in this case. The indictment states that : 
" Comuillier, son-in-law of Saint-Pern and his wife was 
also an accomplice in the Magon conspiracy and one of 
the assassins of the people on the day of August 10." 

Madame Comulier was six months gone with child. Her 
execution was postponed. Eight days later Robespierre's 
fall took place. She was set at liberty and came to give 
evidence against Fouquier. Her evidence will be given in 
the second part of this study. The official report of the 
sitting at which her family was condemned did not contain 
the names of the jurors ; but she had them always in her 
memory — Prieur, Chatelet, and Renaudin, who were after- 
wards accused in their turn. And she furnished an irrefut- 
able proof against them in the paper in which her husband 
had sent her a lock of his hair before he died, and which was 
nothing else than the list of the jurors of the ist of Thermi- 
dor. Fouquier exclaimed : "I was not sitting " ; but the 
writ of indictment was his, and Lohier, a juror, charged 
along with him, said : " The writ of indictment has nothing 
to do with me." 

Together with the Magons, a genuine sans-culoUe, a lawyer, 
Citizen Duchesne, called Duquesne, " a member of the 
Versailles society of sans-culottes ," was impeached as a 
conspirator, although his hairdresser, an influential man, 
had certified that he was " the warmest friend of the 
Revolution." But there is some mystery here, for he was 
condemned to death. 

It is to be noted also that, with the Magons, there was 

Legris, the registrar's clerk, the sad accomplice of so many 

irregularities, so many blank warrants, Legris, in whom 

Fouquier saw " the conspirator Havre's agent with Magon 

la Balue." ^ 

1 " Legris, calling himself the conspirator Havre's steward, was 
his agent with Magon la Balue in order to procure for him the funds 
necessary for the execution of his liberticidal plots. He procured for 
him in the month of March, 1792, a sum of thirty -two thousand three 
hundred and seventy-five francs. He is known to have left French 



92 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

He was arrested at his house at five o'clock in the morning 
while in his bed, and brought at seven o'clock to the Con- 
ciergerie. At nine o'clock his writ of indictment was served 
on him ; at ten o'clock he was in the.dock before the Tribunal ; 
at two o'clock he was no longer aUve.^ This summary execu- 
tion terrified the clerical staff. It found itself threatened. 
Whose turn would be next ? Neither the registrar nor the 
surviving clerks forgave the Public Prosecutor. We shall 
see the terrible and precise accusations made by Paris and 
Wolff at his trial. 

On the 4th of Thermidor the last " batch " from the 
Luxembourg appeared. In this " batch " were the Noailles 
ladies, " deaf and worn with age." The President asked 
them their names. They did not hear him. They were 
brought nearer. At last they understood, gave their 
names, and were sent back to the benches on which the 
prisoners sat.^ They were condemned and guillotined. 
Joseph Meynard-Mellet (17 years old) was taken for young de 
Maille and guillotined in his place. A mistake in the name. 
Moreover, young de Maille himself was also guillotined on 
the 6th of Thermidor. He had flung a rotten fish at the 
head of the purveyor of food during a meal in the prison. 
Who were the witnesses at this trial ? Always the same — 
Boyaval, Benoit and Beausire. 

This is how Benoit afterwards gave an account of his 
evidence at the Tribunal on that day : 

" On the 4th of Thermidor an usher came with a police- 
man to the Carmehte Prison to take me again to the Tribunal. 

territory to go to Mons and confer with Havre on the execution of his 
plots. Finally, he is known, in the months of February, March, April 
and May, 1792, to have been lavish in attributing the feudal and 
counter-revolutionary titles of duke and duchess to those infamous 
conspirators, and to have described himself, at the end of his letters, 
as M. le due d'Havr6's steward ; the mask of patriotism which he has 
assumed and the audacity he has shown in daring to claim the confi- 
dence of a Tribunal which punishes conspirators without distinction 
will only render more terrible the punishment that awaits him and 
serve as a lesson to those who dare to imitate him." (Signed, A. Q. 
Pouquier.) W. 423, No. 958, 2nd part. 

1 Tavernier's evidence at Fouquier's trial. 

^ Julian's evidence at Fouquier's trial. 



THE JURORS' RESPONSIBILITY 93 

On this occasion I was not made to repeat what I knew 
of Grammont's conspiracy ; I was only asked if I knew the 
accused. I knew three of them. I said what I knew 
of them, without hatred as without fear, and I urged the 
Tribunal not to trust to my evidence alone, but to send 
for their room-mates, who would bear witness to the same 
truth. In regard to the others all I knew of them was that 
they were staying at the Luxembourg, 

" How were those prisoners examined who were not 
charged with belonging to this new conspiracy ? They were 
only asked if they had any acquaintance with a conspiracy 
that had existed in the Luxembourg, and still existed at 
that very moment, and if they had given information about 
it. On a negative or affirmative answer, they passed on to 
the next." 

He adds (let us not forget that this was written after 
Thermidor, when he was in prison and defending his life) : — 

" What a manner of trying men ! How the jurors 
ought to reproach themselves for the deaths of those whose 
defence they did not listen to ! " 

" I remember," Benoit also writes, " that on each occasion 
when we went to give evidence, Boyaval spent a good deal 
of time alone in the room of the Public Prosecutor, Every- 
thing leads to the presumption that he was well acquainted 
with all that was happening. As we were returning from 
the Tribunal on the 4th of Thermidor, I asked Boyaval 
about a room-mate of his who had also been mine. ' We 
shall have him guillotined soon,' Boyaval answered, ' He 
is for the first " batch " as well as Fosses and his father-in- 
law. I have been twice to the Committee of Public Safety 
during the last few days, I was there yesterday, and it is I 
who am entrusted with that. We are going to hurry them 
up. We leave some like him as bait for the others and we 
pick them all up in a lump.' " ^ 

Benoit sought, in writing these lines, to clear himself of 
responsibility ; but letters, such as the following, from him 
to Fouquier-Tinville are to be found among the Archives : — 
1 W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 146. 



94 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

" Citizen, I have a declaration to make to you which will 
perhaps be to the public advantage, for the hydra of aristo- 
cracy must be overthrown at all points. Benoist. This 
2ist of Messidor of the year H. of the Republic one and 
indivisible." ^ 

Benoit had passed the 23rd of Messidor at the Carmelites. 2 
He occupied in that prison a private room where he could 
write. At the Carmelites he did the same work as at the 
Luxembourg. The janitor, Roblatre, a brute who tormented 
the prisoners in order to drive them to exasperation, received 
an order to treat him with consideration. In order the 
better to gain the trust of the prisoners and to incline 
them to make confidence, Benoit told some that he came 
from the Department of Eure-et-Loir, others that he came 
from Calvados, or from the Eure, whilst as a matter of 
fact he came straight from the Luxembourg prison. He had 
liberty to go and come, to enter and to leave ; he had a seal 
bearing the arms of the Nation. 

Another police spy at the Carmelites was Citizen Manuel.^ 

^ This also is a letter from Benoist (there are others in the same 
portfolio) : — 

" (To the Citizen Public Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal 
at Paris.) 

" This 25th of Messidor of the Year II. of the Republic one and 
indivisible. 

" Citizen, 

" I believe I ought to denounce to you all the scoundrels who 
seek to humiliate the Convention. An individual about whom I 
gave information, on the 23rd of this month, to the janitor of the 
house of detention of the Luxembourg has said in the presence of 
two citizens whom I pointed out to him, that the Committees of 
Public Safety and of General Security had caused scoundrels to 
be shut up in the Luxembourg in order to rid themselves of honest 
people so that they might govern alone and despotically. I only 
write this letter from a fear that he may not have informed you or 
the Committee of General Security. Greeting and fraternity, Benoist. 
I have many other things of which I ought to inform you, but at the 
moment when I was writing to you I was transferred to the Carme- 
lites and I have been ill since then, but to-day I hope to be better 
and to inform you as well as the Committees of General Security and 
of Public Safety of all that I know." W. 501, ist dossier, p. 33. 

* That is the day following the third Luxembourg " batch." 
This comparison of dates is significant. 

^ See the evidence of Gouget-Deslandres at Fouquier's trial. 



THE CARMELITE CONSPIRACY 95 

Fouquier, at the trials, would say to him : " Come, 
patriot Manuel, enlighten the Tribunal regarding the per- 
fidious intentions of these scoundrels." Then Manuel, 
looking at the accused on the benches, would disclose what 
he had noticed in prison regarding the conduct of each of 
them. Fouquier, according to Gouget-Deslandres, " rubbing 
his hands in token of the fullest satisfaction." 

In reality, the so-called conspiracy in the Carmelite 
Prison seems to have been absolutely imaginary. It owed 
its origin only to a plan of escape attempted by five or six 
prisoners who had found a rope in the belfry, and who 
with the help of this rope, which they transformed into a 
ladder, had tried to escape. Faro and Arbeltier, officers of 
police, went to the Carmelites on the 30th of Messidor. They 
questioned the prisoners. Virolle, a surgeon, suspected of 
being the principal "conspirator," denied the remarks that 
were attributed to him in regard to Robespierre and the 
Committee of Public Safety. Another, Champagnier, was 
also denounced. A list of forty-nine conspirators was 
drawn up. Virolle, the surgeon, in desperation, threw him- 
self out of a window and was killed. He was replaced by 
another, Bourgeois, an ex-lawyer. The forty-nine appeared 
before the Tribunal on the 5th of Thermidor (July 23). 
Three only were acquitted. Fouquier's indictment is drawn 
up with visible carelessness and haste. He furnished no 
proof. " Virol, a prisoner in the house of the Carmelites, 
was the head of this new conspiracy, which coincided with 
those in the houses of detention of Bicetre and of the Luxem- 
bourg. It appears also that the conspirators in the first two 
houses had an understanding and a secret correspondence 
with those in the Carmelites." ^ There are all classes in the 
list of accused — ex-nobles, a merchant, a teacher, ex-priests, 
an ironmonger, a cutler, a shopkeeper, a haberdasher, a 
lawyer, an upholsterer, sailors, a domestic servant, a prince 
— Louis Armand Constantin de Montbazon-Rohan, ex- 

1 Except for Virolle and Champagnier, none of the accused were 
examined at the inquiry. There is no report of an examination 
among the papers. 



96 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

Vice-Admiral. The official report of the hearing bears the 
name of Fouquier-Tinville as present at the pleadings.^ 
We shall see from the evidence of witnesses at his trial that 
he spoke several times against the accused. 

In spite of the extreme credulity of the public, the system 
of Dillon conspiracies, Grammont conspiracies, etc., became 
worn out. " One blushed," says Real, " at returning to this 
commonplace method." A conspiracy at Saint-Lazare was 
imagined. The informers were Manini, an Itahan " man of 
letters," and Coquery, a locksmith. According to their 
statements, " the prisoners were to escape and massacre the 
members of the Committee of Public Safety." In order to 
give a material proof of the plot, Coquery sawed through 
the bar of a window. On the 23rd of Messidor, the day 
following the third " batch " from the Luxembourg, Faro 
was commissioned to hold an inquiry at Saint-Lazare. He 
heard Manini, Coquery, Desisnards, AUain, Gauthier, Scelle, 
and Seme, the janitor. Seme was replaced by a safe man, 
Verney, the former turnkey of the Luxembourg, who 
boasted of " despatching the prisoners at Saint-Lazare as 
he had done at the Luxembourg." To these hired plotters 
were joined Jobert (the Belgian), Pepin Degrouhette, 
Roger La Pointe, Lepecheux, Robinet, and Horace Molin. 
They made out lists, and acted as witnesses at the 
sessions of the Tribunal. Pepin Degrouhette especially 
distinguished himself. He had been a judge of the 
Tribunal established on August 17, and had afterwards 
been sent to prison for dishonestly using his position to 
enrich himself. He would return drunk from the Tribunal, 
and boast that he had been embraced by Fouquier, that he 
was all-powerful at the Tribunal. He was hated and feared. 

The indictment for the Saint-Lazare conspiracy contains 
eighty names, two of which are erased. It was dealt with 
on the three occasions (the 6th, 7th and 8th of Thermidor). 
In the " batch " of the 6th, there was included young 
Fortune Charles Louis Fran9ois de Maille (17 years of age), 
who had thrown at the purveyor's head a rotten fish that 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 429, No. 965, 2nd part, p. 95. 



A DEMONSTRATION OF SYMPATHY 97 

had been served up to him. Young Mellet, who had been 
mistaken for him, had, as we have seen, been guillotined on 
the 4th of Thermidor. In this " batch " of twenty-five 
prisoners, tried on the 6th of Thermidor, and all condemned, 
we may also mention the Abbess of Montmartre, Marie 
Louise de Laval Montmorency, aged seventy-two, and young 
IsabeUe Pigret de Meursin, aged twenty-one, paralysed in 
her legs. They were condemned as accomplices in the 
plan to escape. How could this woman of seventy-two 
and this paralysed girl have escaped through the window 
which Coquery had sawn ? 

Mesdames de Meursin, Joly de Fleury, and Saint- Aignan 
declared themselves pregnant. Madame de Saint- Aignan 
alone was recognised to be so by the officers of health. She 
was detained along with her husband. As for the others, " it 
is impossible," wrote Coffinhal on the revised memorandum 
of the sentence, " for men to communicate with women in 
the house of detention of Lazare." But, all the same, they 
were prosecuted and condemned for having conspired with 
them ! 

On the day of the 7th of Thermidor there were twenty-six 
accused, twenty-five of whom were condemned. Here also 
there is an error of name and of person. Madame de Mayet ^ 
was brought to trial instead of the Vicomtesse de Maille. 
None the less Madame de Mayet was condemned to death 
and executed. As for the Vicomtesse de Maille (she was 
thirty-nine), they returned two days later to look for her 
in her prison. She was led to the Tribunal. She appeared 
as No. 23, the last on the list, at the session presided over 
by Scelher on the gth of Thermidor. As she entered the 
hall of audience she saw the benches on which her young son 
had sat three days before. She fainted. The people — if you 
can caU " the people " those who enjoyed attending the great 
sessions of the Tribunal — the people murmured and made 
a display in her favour. The judges adjourned her case 
to a later session. She was transferred to the Hospice de 
I'Eveche. The next day was the loth of Thermidor. She 
^ Louise Elisabeth Gabrielle Mathy-Simon, Mayet's widow. 

G 



98 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

was saved. She will be heard giving evidence at Fouquier- 
Tinville's trial. 

It was at the session of the 7th of Thermidor, at the head 
of the list, that Antoine Roucher, man of letters, and his 
friend, Andre Chenier, the poet, made their appearance. 
Everybody knows their story and how they went to their 
execution. The verses written by Andre Chenier are also 
known, those splendid, vehement verses of the Jeune 
Captive, that immortal cry of rage uttered by an honest man, 
powerless before his executioners : 

" Mourir sans vider mon carquois, 
Sans percer, sans fouler, sans petrir dans leur fange 

Ces bourreaux barbouilleurs de lois, 
Ces vers cadavereux de la France asservie, 

Egorgee ! " 

Let us also note on the list of the twenty-five condemned 
on the 7th of Thermidor, Louis Sers, fifty years of age, a 
captain of infantry, commandant of Chandernagor. Cofhn- 
hal, when revising the hst of accused in order to propound 
the questions to the jury, wrote on the margin before the 
name of Louis Sers, these words : " Captain of infantry, 
commandant of Chambarnagot." 

At this session only three witnesses, three police spies, 
were heard — Manini, " an author-artist," Pepin Desgrouettes 
whom we know, and who styled himself official defender, and 
Coquery, the locksmith. 

In the third " batch," that of the 8th, there were 
twenty-five accused and twenty-three condemned, among 
them the two Trudaines, Charles Louis, twenty-nine 
years old, and Charles Michel, twenty-eight, and Jean 
Simon LoizeroUes, condemned in mistake for his son, 
Fran9ois.^ Here the error was not due to Fouquier. 
Coflfinhal, who presided at the session on that day, and the 
registrar's clerk must alone bear the responsibility for the 
additional words that exist on the page of questions pro- 

1 M. Louis Comber gives an entirely different account of the 
LoizeroUes trial. Cf. Episodes et Curiosites Revolutionnaires, 
p. 307.— Tr. 



A FATHER'S SACRIFICE 99 

pounded to the jury, and which were employed for drawing 
up the verdict. The first document in this bundle^ is a 
general list of the prisoners at Saint-Lazare, numbered 
in the Public Prosecutor's hand. We read there : " No. 
18, Loizerole, the son." This is not a reference to 
the father. On the indictment, signed by Fouquier, 
there is, in the Hst of accused persons : " No. 5, Fran9ois- 
Simon LoizeroUes, the son, aged twenty-two, born in Paris, 
residing at No. 82, Rue Victor." This is not a reference to 
the father. In the body of this indictment : " LoizeroUes, 
Primpin (one of the accused) , and others, the priests Brognard 
and Broquet, have not ceased since the Revolution from 
displaying the most pronounced aversion and hatred for the 
sovereignty of the people and for equality." That is all. 
Yet at the moment the questions were propounded to the 
jury, Cofhnhal's hand had corrected and written Jean 
instead of Francois, father instead of son, sixty-one years 
instead of twenty-two. Coffinhal's hand had also added the 
words " a former lieutenant of the bailiwick of the Arsenal, 
an ex-noble," which apply to the father. The official report 
of the session and of the verdict^ reproduce the form adopted 
and imposed by Coffinhal. 

The father sacrificed himself for his son without protest, 
and he stoically allowed himself to be guillotined in his place. 
Fouquier, when brought to trial after the 9th of Thermidor, 
defended himself against the charge of having committed 
this criminal error by saying : " After the odious law of the 
22nd of Prairial, there was no longer any examination in 
order to procure the Christian names and descriptions of 
the prisoners brought before the Tribunal ; it was necessary 
to send to the different houses of detention where they were, 
and the man who went to Lazare to take the Christian 
names, the age, and the description of LoizeroUes, the father, 
did not take care to ask if there were several LoizeroUes, and 
he took the Christian names and description of the son, who 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 431, No. 968. 

^ They are in the handwriting of Jacques Derbez, registrar's clerk. 
W. 431, No. 968. 



100 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

presented himself instead of the father, although his note 
bears the name of Loizerolles, the father ; those names, 
descriptions, and age were filled in by the secretary of the 
prosecutor's office just as they were brought back." 

Fouquier blunders here. For on the general Ust of the 
Saint-Lazare prisoners selected to be sent to the Tribunal, 
can stiU be read, under No. i8, the name of Loizerolles, the 
son, and nowhere is there a reference to that of the father. 
But where Fouquier is right is when he incriminates Coffinhal 
and the registrar's clerk : " This omission and this crime, 
if they really exist, are due to President Cofhnhal and to 
the registrar's clerk who was responsible for the session, 
and not to the PubHc Prosecutor's deputy, who, no more 
than the latter, ever signed the minutes of the verdicts 
and could in no way be responsible for them." We shall 
hear the evidence of Loizerolles, the son, at Fouquier' s 
trial. 

In conclusion, let us recall that on the 7th of Thermidor 
(July 25), at six o'clock in the evening, at the Oiseaux, a 
tranquil prison where the prisoners paid very highly for their 
board, and where it seems that until then there was a desire 
to forget them, a noise was heard in the street. An immense 
chariot, drawn by four horses, had stopped before the door. 
Four gendarmes and an usher of the Revolutionary Tribunal 
entered the prison. The janitor had to ring the bell. 
At this summons, the prisoners assembled in the courtyard.^ 
The roll was called. Eleven prisoners were chosen to 
enter the chariot. Among them were the Princesse de 
Chimay, the Comtesses de Narbonne-Pelet and Raymond- 
Narbonne, the Comte de Clermont-Tonnerre (74 years old), 
the Marquis de Crussol d'Amboise, and M. Simeon de Saint- 
Simon, Bishop of Agde (70 years old). WTien these eleven 
had entered, the chariot started off and went to Port- 
Libre and to Plessis. It was at Plessis that it " loaded " 
Therese-Frangoise de Stainville, Princesse de Grimaldi- 
Monaco (26 years old), she whom Fouquier called " the 
woman Monaco," in a letter of the same date addressed to the 
* Memoires sur les Prisons, II., p. i8g. 



I 



MISTAKES IN IDENTITY loi 

members of the Popular Commission, claiming from them 
documents against a certain number of persons such as 
" Crussol d'Amboise, Clermont-Tonnerre, the woman Chimay, 
Saint-Simon, the woman Querrohen, the woman Monaco," 
etc., for he had not received the said documents, and " those 
persons will be brought to trial to-morrow."^ 

The Princesse de Monaco declared herself pregnant. On 
the following day she withdrew her statement. She had 
only wanted to gain time to write to her children and to send 
them her hair. The decision which declared her not preg- 
nant and which ordered her execution is dated the 9th of 
Thermidor.2 She must have formed part of the last cart- 
load. 

To sum up : the Pubhc Prosecutor, overworked and broken 
down, was no longer able to draw up his writs of indict- 
ment himself. He had them drawn up by his secretaries. 
Those documents no longer contained even the semblance 
of a proof. Entire famiUes were sent to the guillotine. The 
motive ? They had conspired. Where ? When ? How ? 
There was no answer. 

Each evening Fouquier-Tinville arranged that " batches " 
of accused persons should be put on trial next day. Quanti- 
ties of documents were lacking. He claimed them. He 
wanted them at once. But time pressed, and he had re- 
ceived an order to draw up the case for the prosecution for 
the next day. Mistakes as to persons were made, criminal, 
irreparable mistakes, since there was but one penalty — the 
guillotine. So-and-so was charged in mistake for so-and-so, 
condemned in mistake for so-and-so, guillotined for so-and- 
so. AU this is easy to verify to-day. The documents exist 
among the Archives. 

Fouquier-TinviUe was in close touch with those hirehngs, 
the police spies of the prisons. These wretches gave 
evidence at the pleadings, if one can call pleadings sessions 
of some hours at which sixty prisoners are tried in an after- 
noon and condemned to death. Moreover, at some of the 

^ Archives Nationales, F' 4, 436, liasse T., p. 9. 
* W., 432, dossier 971, 2nd part, p. 47. 



102 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

sessions, only the police spies appeared as witnesses. Take 
for example the session of the 19th of Messidor (the first 
" batch " from the Luxembourg) when there were sixty 
accused, all of whom were condemned, and only five 
witnesses, of whom four were spies, and the fifth a turnkey,. 
Lesenne, who, not having the heart to lie, said he had not 
known of a conspiracy in the prison. Fouquier had him 
arrested before the session ended. Take another example 
— the second " batch " from Saint-Lazare,on the 7th of 
Thermidor. There were three witnesses, three spies, 
Manini, Pepin Desgrouettes and Coquery. 

On the official reports of the sessions, the jurors were no 
longer even designated by their names. Did they fear 
future responsibility if the form of government were to 
change ? Was there not time enough, or did no one take 
the trouble to inscribe their names ? The matter remains 
a mystery. 

That Fouquier, devoted as he was to his task, hardened as 
he may have become, should feel himself exhausted ; that 
he should recognise that he and his staff were worn out 
beyond the limits of human strength ; that he no longer 
saw clearly in that atmosphere of fever and blood in which he 
lived ; that he declared himself overwhelmed ; that he said 
to the attendants in the refreshment-room of the Tribunal, 
the Morisans, in a moment of communicativeness and dis- 
gust : "I would rather dig the ground ! " — all this is 
reasonable and human. None the less, he remained at 
his post and was anxious to remain at it. 

Did he reflect, did he think, did he meditate on what had 
been accomplished in sixteen months ? All that blood ! 
All that red frenzy ! All those heads that " fell " ! All 
those human existences cut off ! Those young women ! 
Those young girls ! Those old men ! Those young men ! 
So many human lives for an imaginary, or at least a doubt- 
ful plot ! 

But that he reprobated his task, that he understood that 
too much was too much, and that the hour was near when he 
must give account — for everything has to be paid for, and 



I 



THE LAST ACT 103 

violence attracts violence— this does not appear. Nothing 
in his attitude as a tenacious official, exact and firm at his 
post, indicates this. 

The pohtical drama is at its last act. We have reached 
the 9th of Thermidor. 



CHAPTER IV 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE AND THE NINTH OF THERMIDOR 

ON the night of the 9th of Thermidor, Fouquier- 
Tinville was late in returning home to the Palace 
of Justice. 
He had been to dehver to the Committees of 
Public Safety and of General Security the two lists it was 
his duty to furnish to them ; one containing the names 
of prisoners tried during the past ten days ; the other those 
of the " conspirators " to be brought before the Tribunal 
during the following ten days.^ 

At ten o'clock on the morning of the 9th of Thermidor, he 
had taken his place at the Tribunal in the Hall of Equahty. 
Dumas presided over the session, assisted by Antoine Marie 
Maire, Gabriel Dehege, and Jean Baptiste Henry Antoine 
Felix as judges. 

The court was open to the pubhc. Nine jurors entered, 
whose names on this day were given in the official report of 
the session — Specht, Magnien, Potherat, Masson, Deveze, 
Buttin,^ Gauthier, Fenaux, and Laurent. 

The accused were led to the bar. There were twenty-five. 
Four old men of from seventy to seventy-five, beside young 
men, and others in the prime of hfe, and there were three 
women. A lamentable spectacle presented itself before the 

1 It was by a resolution of the Committee of Public Safety that 
Fouquier had to hand in these lists. He continued to furnish them 
up to and inclusive of the 9th of Thermidor. Buchez and Roux, 
XXXIV., p. 239. 

2 Buttin is mentioned on this particular day in the two official 
reports of the sessions held at the same time, one in the HaU of Equal- 
ity, the other in that of Liberty. This demonstrates once again the 
haste and carelessness with which the judicial documents were com- 
piled during Messidor and at the beginning of Thermidor in the 
year II. 

104 



A PITILESS TRIBUNAL 105 

public, a public, however, surfeited by these exhibitions, 
which had now lasted for sixteen months. One of the 
accused, an old man, deaf, blind, and in his second child- 
hood, was carried in by the gendarmes and placed on the 
prisoners' bench. On the previous day he had been trans- 
ferred from the Luxembourg to the Conciergerie. Three 
gendarmes and Budelot, the coachman of the Tribunal, 
helped him down from the carriage. The state he was in 
when he arrived was such that the whole of his clothing had 
to be changed. Too stupefied to know where he was, his 
eyes deprived of light, his ears not hearing the questions, 
and his palsied tongue incapable of articulating any 
intelligible sound, he was unaware of the terrible Tribunal. 
He was the ex-Accountant-General, M. Durand Puy deVerine. 
His wife appeared with him, she also was charged, then her 
name erased, and finally re-inserted. 

The Public Prosecutor's witnesses were introduced. To 
twenty-five prisoners there were only five witnesses, ^ and even 
those five witnesses had only to do with three of the accused. 

Dimias had the jurors sworn. These then took their 
seats in the court, facing the accused and the witnesses. 
The President told the accused that they could be seated, and 
then questioned them on their names, ages, professions, resi- 
dences, and places of birth. The registrar read the writ 
of indictment. Drawn up, on the previous evening, under 
Fouquier's supervision, this writ at first contained fifteen 
names. But as it was impossible for him, in his rapid task, 
to identify twelve of those names, the Public Prosecutor had 
crossed out the twelve following — those of a stonemason, 
an innkeeper, a seller of lemonade, three soldiers, a major 
and his wife, those of three other persons, and, lastly, that of a 
woman whose identity was not sufficiently estabhshed by two 
masculine Christian names, doubtless those of her husband. ^ 
Then making out a new list, Fouquier rapidly drew up a writ 
of indictment against twenty-one other prisoners. But 
here again a difficulty arose. One of the accused, Louis 

1 W. 433, dossier 973. 

* Those twelve persons were saved by the 9th of Thermidor. 



io6 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

Clair Maurin, whose place of birth was unknown, was affirmed 
to be dead. Fouquier wrote on the margin condemned. 
Dumas wrote dead. As a matter of fact, Louis Clair Maurin, 
who had been confused with Jean Dominique Maurin, guillo- 
tined on the 19th of Messidor, had himself been guillotined 
on the 22nd. Another, Jean Baptiste Lafond, 37 years of 
age, an ex-priest, whose place of birth was also unknown, 
and whom Fouquier has described as " an intriguing ex-canon, 
a frequenter of gambling dens, a gambler in the funds," 
could not be found. He was mentioned under the heading 
of absent. Was it in order to replace these two who were 
missing that the Public Prosecutor " reinserted " on his list 
Perronnet Brillon-Busse and Jeremie Saint-Hilaire, " at first 
omitted as having been mistaken for others " ? Here 
they were at the session. Fouquier's list is complete — 
there are twenty-five accused in all.^ 

The system of amalgams was working better than ever. At 
this session, in the Hall of EquaUty, a lawyer and former 
agent of Conde's, was arraigned with an ex -Treasurer of 
France ; an ex-Mayor with a captain of cavalry of Conde's 
regiment ; an architect with an ex- justice of the peace. 
Who were the others ? An ex-noble, an ex-cashier of a glass 
factory, a teacher of astronomy born at Oppenheim in the 
Palatinate, an upholsterer of the Rue Mouffetard, an iron- 
monger of the Rue Saint-Martin ; the divorced wife of a 
commissary, an ex-legislator and an ex-noble, a merchant 
born at Villeneuve-d'Agen ; two poor chimney-sweepers, 
whom the indictment described as ex-nobles, and who actually 
were the Loisons, husband and wife, managers of the marion- 
ette theatre of the Champs-Elysees ; a private in the 17th 
battalion of infantry ; a captain of a mounted regiment ; 
a clerk in the administration of pubhc lands ; an upholsterer 
to " Capet's aunts " ; a bailiff of the Haute-Marne ; finally, 
Pierre Durand Puy de Verine, ex-Accountant-General, and 
his wife, Marie Marguerite Barcos, a sad and dismal couple 
already marked with the immobility of death. 

All those accused persons are mentioned by Fouquier- 
1 W. 433, dossier 973. 









•T^*K" 



^'-^ 



THE NIGHT OF THE NINTH 



^-^i 



J^ 



ERMIDOR, IN THE YEAR II. 



TRUMPED-UP CHARGES 107 

Tinville as " suspected of having engaged in operations 
tending to excite trouble, of having passed and signed 
resolutions tending to favour and propagate the system of 
federalism and to impede the circulation of provisions, of 
having held communication and correspondence with the 
internal and external enemies of the Republic, of having 
caused help in money to be sent to them in order to faciUtate 
their invasion of French territory." 

Care must be taken not to be deceived by the formulae dear 
to Fouquier, Dumas, and Coffinhal. In reality, the first three 
prisoners, Jean Antoine Lhuillier, Sebastien Alaroze La- 
brenne, and Gabriel Frangois Salle, were the only ones 
against whom there exist the elements of proof in the port- 
folios of the Revolutionary Tribunal. Vainly were proofs 
sought against the others. And what proofs ! The facts 
are that on August 4, 1793, the municipal officers of the 
seven municipalities forming the canton of Chevagne, in the 
district of Moulins, in the Department of the AUier, assem- 
bled at Chevagne, were confronted by a menacing dearth of 
provisions, and had proposed to have recourse to mutual 
union and assistance in all that concerned the means of 
subsistence. They proposed to aid the adjoining districts 
with their surplus of corn, if there were any. They showed 
themselves, besides, determined to defend the necessary and 
indispensable products of their own district by all legal means. 
Could that be made out as a crime ? Very prudent and wise 
measures were taken with a view to realise this aspiration. 
But on August 13, the executive council of the Department 
of the AUier had decreed that this deliberation bore all the 
marks of illegality and anarchy, that it " tended to give the 
idea of federalism," and was " an attempt against unity 
and indivisibility " and against " the distribution of pro- 
visions." Out of fifteen who had signed the proposal, four 
had been arrested — Lhuillier, Labrenne, Salle and Durand, 
the President. Then the President had been set free. The 
three others were to be tried in the revolutionary style. On 
the 30th of Floreal they had appeared before the director of 
the jury d' accusation of the tribunal of the district of Moulins. 



io8 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

They had to answer this question : " What had been their 
views and for what motive had they proposed on August 4, 
1793, in the canton of Chevagne, to prevent the distribution 
of grain necessary for the existence of their fellow-citizens 
who ought to be as dear to them as themselves, and to whom 
they owed, according to natural law and humanity, every 
assistance even to the exhaustion of the product of their 
harvests which the Supreme Being had preserved and des- 
tined for all their fellow-citizens as well as for themselves. 
The territory of France belongs to the whole Repubhc. 
Consequently all individuals inhabiting it have equal rights. 
If they were imbued with these truths, they would not have 
fallen into the illegality of anarchy that could not but give 
the idea of federalism." On the 6th of Messidor of the 
year II., a judgment of the criminal tribunal of the AUier 
ordered all the documents in the case to be sent to Fouquier- 
Tinville. He was to " consider in his wisdom whether he 
ought to cause those accused to be brought before the 
Revolutionary Tribunal. "^ The Public Prosecutor of Mou- 
lins having asked his colleague of Paris if there was ground 
for issuing a warrant only against the three accused persons 
indicated as ring-leaders, or if it were necessary to include the 
fifteen signatories to the measure, Fouquier-Tinville had 
answered by the following note : " Warrant against the 
three chiefs only." That was why Jean Antoine Lhuillier, 

1 " While uncertain as to the line you will take," the Public Prose- 
cutor of the Allier wrote to Fouquier, on the 9th, " I think I am antici- 
pating your wishes in telling you that the general opinion of the 
patriots of the district is that almost all the signatories of this pro- 
posal are good ignorant citizens, as are our rural inhabitants, whose 
signatures have been tricked from them, that they did not know 
they were being made to commit an act of liberticide, and, on the 
contrary, believed they were only labouring for the public good 
which they have not ceased to love. It is thought also that the 
author of this whole business is Lhuillier, a former agent of the traitor 
Conde, and that Labresne and Salle, formerly privileged persons, had 
a great deal to do with it." It is thought I Everybody did not 
think thus. For one can see among the papers a certificate and a 
fervent petition from the citizens of the commune of Chezy in favour 
of Alaroze Labresne, "a magistrate necessary to their commune," 
signed by " the small number of those who can write." 



THE ARREST OF THE PRESIDENT 109 

Sebastien Alaroze Labrenne, and Gabriel Fran9ois Salle 
appeared before the Revolutionary Tribunal on this 9th of 
Thermidor, in the Hall of Equality. 

As for the others, nothing in the documents indicates 
what really was their crime. There is no material evidence. 

The reading of the writ of indictment had ended. The 
voice of Pesme, the registrar, ceased. In the court five 
individuals got up and went out. These were the witnesses 
brought forward by the Public Prosecutor and summoned 
at his request. It was about noon. The weather was heavy 
and thunder-laden. Through the open windows the great 
hum of Paris was heard. A name rang out, called by the 
usher. It was that of the first witness, Dupont, a member of 
the revolutionary committee of the Beaurepaire Section. 
He knew Loison, the director of the theatre of marionettes. 
He made his declaration. One after another there entered 
and gave evidence the spy Jobert (the Belgian) ; an engraver 
who knew the prisoner Lavoisien ; Lambert, a trader ; 
Descaffe, without profession, and Aubert, an innkeeper, 
who knew the prisoner Marche, an usher. 

Fouquier-Tinville then began to speak, and expounded his 
writ of indictment. He described the means by which he 
would prove his case. No defender answered him, the 
defence having been suppressed by the law of Prairial. 

Then the jury were invited to retire to their room to 
deliberate. The President caused the prisoners to with- 
draw. The Tribunal remained in session. 

Suddenly there was a thunderbolt. The President of the 
Revolutionary Tribunal had just been arrested whilst sitting. 
An order of the Committee of Public Safety ! He was led 
away. Citizen Maire, one of his assessors, replaced him, and 
the session went on amid general amazement.^ 

^ The judgment on Lhuillier and others, to the number of ^25, 
condemned to death, ends thus : — 

" Given and pronounced on the gth of Thermidor of the second 
year of the RepubHc, at the pubHc session at which sat Rene Frangois 
Dumas, President, Antoine Marie Maire, Gabriel Dehege, and Jean- 
Bap tiste Henry Antoine FeUx, judges, who have signed this present 
judgment with the registrar's clerk, and at the moment of the 



no THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

Nothing in Fouquier-Tinville's attitude betrayed emotion 
or anxiety. He was master of himself. Did he suspect 
the causes of the brutal arrest of the President ? Did he 
know of the violent speech delivered by Dumas on the 
previous day at the Jacobin Society during the tumultuous 
session when Robespierre defined the political situation in 
these menacing terms : " It is easy to see that factious per- 
sons are afraid of being unmasked in the people's presence ; 
moreover, I thank them for having distinguished themselves 
in so pronounced a manner, and for having made me better 
acquainted with my enemies and those of our country " ? 

Did Fouquier know that Dumas, mounting the tribune, 
had denounced the conspiracy as by no means doubtful, 
and the Government as counter-revolutionary ? Did he 
know that, addressing those who, at the beginning of the 
session, had quarrelled with Robespierre about the right to 
speak, Dumas exclaimed : " It is strange that men who 
for several months have kept silence, ask to be allowed to 
speak to-day, doubtless to oppose the expression of the 
crushing truths that Robespierre has just made. It is easy 
to recognise in them the heirs of Hebert and Danton. I 
prophesy to them that they will also inherit the fate of those 
conspirators."^ 

Towards half-past one, a report was current at the 
Tribunal that the Faubourg Saint-Antoine was in an uproar, 

delivery of the jury's verdict, the President having retired, Citizen 
Maire has performed his duties as President. (Signed) Maire, 
Dehege, Fehx, Pesme." (W. 433, No. 973.) On the margin of the 
third page of this judgment (on the back) Pesme, the registrar's clerk, 
has written, " Note. This judgment was given on the day of the 
arrest of the traitor Dumas, and it was impossible to procure the 
names of some of the birthplaces and residences. — M. P." " Dumas 
was arrested on his seat at noon." Robert Wolff's evidence at 
Fouquier-Tinville's trial. W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 10. 

* Dumas when arrested was transported to and imprisoned in 
Sainte-P61agie, at 4 o'clock. " Several individuals came to take him 
away. The weakness of the janitor is the reason that he got out. 
Immediately on learning this fact, we (the Committee of General 
Security) had the janitor of Sainte-Pelagie arrested." (Voulland at 
the Convention. Session of the 13th of Fructidor, year II. See the 
Moniteur.) 



THE VERDICT iii 

that grave trouble was to be feared, that drums were beating 
to arms.i 

The session continued, or rather the sessions. For in the 
Hall of Liberty, at the same hour, twenty-three prisoners 
were on trial. Scellier presided ; Grebeauval, Fouquier's 
deputy, occupied the seat of the Public Prosecutor. Fou- 
quier had revised and signed the indictment on the previous 
day, the 8th of Thermidor. 

But the jurors in the Hall of Equahty caused Maire to be 
informed that they were ready to give their verdict. They 
entered and each resumed his place. One after another the 
President called on them, and asked them to give their 
" vote " on each of the questions propounded to them, and in 
the order in which they appeared in the memorandum they 
held in their hands. It was a memorandum drawn up by 
Dumas before the trial, that morning or on the previous 
evening, the terrible brevity and the embarrassing formula 
of which deserve to be recorded. It is to those enigmatic 
and evil questions that men incapable of judging in cold 
blood or possessing a knowledge of the case were going to give 
answer. From the way in which Dumas made out this 
list of questions they were certain to be completely bewil- 
dered. Yet, on their " yes " the hves of twenty-five accused 
persons depended. ^ 

1 W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 10. 

- Here are some of the questions propounded, as Dumas made out 
the minute : — 

" Are they convicted of having declared themselves enemies of 
the people, that is to say : — 

I, Charpentier ; 2, Valot ; 3, Durand (sic) ; 4, the woman Durand 
(sic) ; 5, Larcher (sic) ; 6, Brillon Busse ; 7, Saint-Hilaire ; 8, 
Vrigny ; by keeping up a correspondence with the internal enemies 
of the State, tending to favour the invasion of French territory and 
to destroy public liberty, g, Soumesson ; 10, Lavoisien ; 11, Gillet ; 
12, Loison ; 13, the woman Loison ; 14, Legay ; 15, Duval ; 16, 
Mongelchot ; 17, Guerin ; 18, Foicier ; 19, Vatrin ; 20, Coqueau ; 
by joining the coalition of conspirators leagued against the people, 
seeking to corrupt the public mind, to repress patriotism, employing 
trickery, menace, and violence to favour the tyranny of Capet, the 
triumph of the factions, and the destruction of liberty. 21, the woman 
Coriolis, by instigating the humiliation and dissolution of the national 
representation. 22, Lhuillier ; 23, Alarose La Brenne ; 24, Salle, 



112 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

The jury's declaration was affirmative in regard to all the 
prisoners except the woman Coriolis, who was acquitted. 
The other twenty-four were condemned to death in con- 
formity with the provisions of Articles IV., V. and VI. of the 
law of Prairial. Their property was declared confiscated 
to the RepubUc to be used for the subsistence of widows and 
orphans, " if they have no other resources." 

The session ended. In the courtyard of the Conciergerie 
was already heard the rumbling of the carts which Fouquier 
caused to be prepared to carry away the condemned. There 
were six of them, and none too many ; for the other session, 
that of the Hall of Liberty, had decided well also. Twenty- 
one had been condemned, and there was also the Princesse 
de Monaco, whose death-warrant Dumas had signed that 
morning in the council chamber.^ Total : forty-six heads 
doomed to fall before night at the Barrier of Vincennes. 

It was half-past tv/o o'clock. At the Convention, ]\Iaxi- 
milien Robespierre had just flung at his opponents, who were 
shouting, " Long live the Republic ! " the bitter retort, 
" The Republic ! It is already ruined, for the brigands are 
triumphant." 

Three days before, on the 6th of Thermidor, Fouquier had 
dined at the house of Citizen La Jariette, in the Rue Meslay, 
with Deputies Goupilleau de Fontenay, Cochon de Lapparent, 
Morisson, and some members of the Revolutionary Tribunal, 
Scellier, Coffinhal, and Grebeauval. A friend of La Jariette, 
Jean Baptiste Vergnhes, a man comfortably off, living on his 
income, was at the dinner. Coffinhal, his neighbour in the 
He Saint-Louis,- had said to him : " You ought to invite 
to your house to-morrow the members of the Revolutionary 
Tribunal who are here this evening." Vergnhes had said 
" yes," and given the invitation. Fouquier, saying he had 

by, on August 4, 1793, instigating the formation of illegal assemblies 
and passing resolutions tending to prevent the distribution of pro- 
visions and to excite civil war by famine. 25, Mareclie, by instigating 
through his speeches and proceedings the dissolution of the national 
representation and the re-establishment of tyranny. 

' Archives Nationales, W. 432, No. 971, 2nd part, p. 47. 

2 Coffinhal lived in the Rue Le Resrrattier. 



A TRAGIC MOMENT 113 

engagements on the 7th and 8th., proposed the 9th, which 
was adopted. 

They had then arranged to meet on that day between 
three and four o'clock, at the house of Vergnhes, at the 
western end of the lie Saint-Louis (He de la Fraternite) 
at No. I, Quai Egalite, formerly Quai Bourbon.^ 

Accompanied by Cofhnhal, the Vice-President, and the 
juror Desboisseaux, a member of the General Council of 
the Commune of Paris, Fouquier-Tinville was about to leave 
the Palace of Justice to keep this invitation when one of the 
executioner's assistants approached him. He informed the 
Public Prosecutor that trouble had broken out in the Fau- 
bourg Saint-Antoine through which the carts must pass 
on their way to the Barrier of Vincennes. The same observa- 
tion was made to him by two employees in the ushers' 
office, Andre Contat and Etienne Simonnet. They told him 
that " things were going to happen in Paris ;2 that it would be 
prudent not to go on with the executions, that it might 
endanger the guard, etc." Fouquier stopped and Hstened to 
them. For a moment he paused to think. A tragic moment, 
during which the fate of forty-six human beings was to be 
decided ! For a moment he pondered, and turning to the 
executioner's assistant said : " The course of justice must 
not be stopped. Proceed ! " 

A little farther on he met Adnet, the captain of gendarmes, 
who told him that Hanriot had given orders to arrest Botot- 
Dumesnil, the commander of the gendarmes attached to 
the Tribunals. Ought the carts to start ? This news should 
have been enough to give pause to Fouquier. But nothing 
could do that. " I cannot stop the course of justice," he 
answered Captain Adnet. 

The carts started, carrying the unfortunate persons, who 
twenty-four hours later would have been saved ; carrying 
the paralytic Durand Puy de Verine and his wife, the 
Loison couple, the charming and heroic Princesse de Monaco. 
The carts started, and Fouquier departed to sup with 
Vergnhes. 

1 W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 46. ^ w'^ ^00, 3rd dossier, p. 58. 

H 



114 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

During the meal there was no discussion of the events 
of the day, neither of the arrest of Dumas, which, however, 
" had struck the guests who were members of the Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal, and Fouquier^ in particular, with con- 
sternation," nor the tragic facts of which at that very hour 
the Convention was the scene. Fouquier ate little. ^ His 
host, " who saw him only for the second time," asked himself 
whether this consternation was " the result of astonishment 
or of complicity."^ 

From the windows of the house in which Vergnhes lived 
it was easy to perceive what was taking place in the Com- 
munal House. About five o'clock, at the moment when 
this melancholy repast was ending, loud noises and a pro- 
longed clamour were heard, and some one cried : 

" Look at the crowd in the square. They are workmen. 
It might be a riot." 

Vergnhes's servant came to say that they were workmen 
protesting against the law of the maximum. The noise 
increased. A quarter of an hour afterwards this servant, 
who had been out for news, returned to say that Robespierre 
and his friends had been arrested, and that the crowd was 
rushing towards the Commune. Cofhnhal, a member of the 
General Council, rose, and, sending for his sash, said : "I 
am going there ! " " My post is in my office where I might 
receive orders at any minute," said Fouquier. " I am going 
there." Vergnhes, " a little agitated by these disturbances," 
listened to the advice of one of the guests. Tampon, a judge 
of the Tribunal of the Third Arrondissement, and went to 
his Section, and Tampon started for his.^ 

Fouquier, accordingly, returned straight home. Pro- 
ceeding along the Quai aux Ormes, he encounted Oudart, 
the President of the Criminal Tribunal.^ They walked to- 
gether to the Palace. Beside them, quite close, on the Place 

» W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 46. 

* Ibid. 
' Ibid. 

* W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 64. 

' The Criminal Tribunal tried crimes and offences against the 
common law. 



"I REMAIN AT MY POST" 115 

de la Maison Commune, the riot raged. They did not stop. 
They edged past the riot, which ignored them. They were in 
a hurry to get back, Fouquier above all. 

At the Palace of Justice, in this company of Terrorist 
officials, now terrorised, everybody was trembling for himself. 
And here came the " chief." Usually violent and morose, 
he was this evening silent, dejected, circumspect. He was 
desirous of knowing what was going to happen. He sent out 
for news. 

He called for Adnet, the police officer, who gave him an 
account of the different events of the day from the time of 
his departure. Commander Botot-Dumesnil had been 
arrested at four o'clock, in the midst of his troop, by order 
of Hanriot, Lescot-Fleuriot, and Payan,^ 

Fouquier said : " I remain at my post."^ At six o'clock in 
the evening he was with his wife,^ doubtless to reassure her, 
whilst in his own mind there sprang up and increased an 
anxiety that he did not wish to show. 

At eight o'clock, Dubesne, the lieutenant of gendarmes, 
called to give him an account of his mission. The execution 
of the condemned had taken place " with the usual calm." 
Fouquier at this hour was at home, " in his domicile," with 
ScelUer, the Vice-President of the Tribunal, and Grebeauval, 
one of his deputies.^ He left his apartments, and went to 
the place where he usually spent his evenings before going 
to the Committee, to the refreshment-room of the Tribunal, 
where he was to remain throughout this long evening of the 
9th of Thermidor. There he was to be seen and heard. 
Witnesses were afterwards able to say how correct was his 
attitude, how " pure " his conduct, how irreproachable his 
utterances. The " scoundrel " Dumas, his enemy, was doubt- 
less going to pay with his head for his audacity in having con- 
spired against the Convention. He, Fouquier, the executant 
of the law, the vigilant and indefatigable purveyor of the 
guillotine, remained at his post, and, unshaken, awaited the 
orders of the Convention and the Committees. 

A melancholy evening, this spent with the Morisans, the 

1 W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 46. '^ Ibid. ^ Ibid. * Ibid. 



ii6 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

attendants in the refreshment-room of the Tribunal. The 
toscin was heard sounding. An enormous clamour, like gusts, 
of wind, rose through the night, and died away against the 
walls of the Palace of Justice. Groups formed in the 
sweltering streets, and, in the depths of the gaols, prisoners, 
who had resigned themselves to an early execution, were 
astounded and attentive. 

The man who, for sixteen months, had appeared as the all- 
powerful exterminator, as the axe and rods suspended over 
human existence, this man was to the Morisans a customer, 
regular in his habits, a good and homely feUow. Several 
times they heard Fouquier complain that his trade was a 
cruel one, that he would prefer " to dig the ground." Several 
times they heard him ask : " Were there many people at 
the executions ? " and when they answered, " Yes," he 
would say : " It is frightful ! What a wretched trade ! " 
And he would shrug his shoulders.^ Several times, after 
the 22nd of Prairial, they had heard him say : " The times 
are very cruel ; it cannot last." They often heard him 
complain of Dumas, his rival. 

The heat was stifling. About nine o'clock Fouquier 
descended to the refreshment-room and ordered a bottle of 
beer. He had just learned that Botot-Dumesnil had been 
set at liberty by the Committee of General Security. He 
sent for him, desirous of knowing what was happening. 
Botot-Dumesnil despatched orderlies for news. Fouquier 
also sent out Malarme,the secretary of the prosecutor's office. 
On several occasions he said : " Whatever is done, I remain 
at my post." 

One after another fragments of news came to him. Maxi- 
milien Robespierre, his brother Augustin, Couthon, Saint- 
Just, and Lebas had been unanimously impeached by the 
Convention. Lebas had been sent to the Conciergerie ; 
Augustin to Saint -Lazare and then to La Force; Saint- 
Just to the Ecossais, Couthon to La Bourbe, Maximilien to 
the Luxembourg. But the janitor of that house had, 
it appears, refused to receive him by virtue of an injunction 
1 W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 45 bis. 




THL AkKLSl OI ROEESPILRRL 



A PROVISIONAL COMMITTEE 117 

of the police administrators not to admit any prisoner 
without their orders.^ Robespierre insisted on being im- 
prisoned. In vain. He was then led to the offices of the 
police administration on the Quai des Orfevres. The General 
Council of the Commune had appointed a provisional execu- 
tive committee composed of nine members — Payan, Coffin- 
hal, Louvet, Lerebours, Legrand, Desboisseaux (the Des- 
boisseaux with whom Fouquier had dined at the house of 
Vergnhes some hours before), Chatelet, Arthur, and Grenard, 
Hanriot had been arrested and replaced by Giot, of the 
Theatre Frangais Section, who had taken an oath to serve 
the country. Coffinhal and Desboisseaux, about ten o'clock, 
both wearing national sashes, sabre in hand and at the head 
of a body of artillerymen, forcing all the doors of the Com- 
mittee of General Security at the Tuileries, calling for 
Robespierre with loud cries, had invaded the Committee, 
gone over the whole building, and carried off Hanriot by 
force. 2 

But the drama continued. On VouUand's proposal, the 
Convention, sitting at night, had outlawed Robespierre, 
his brother Augustin, Saint-Just, Couthon, and Lebas as 
traitors to the country. Their friends rescued them from 
the prisons. They were at the Commune. 

Fouquier, on learning this news, said : "I remain at my 
post even if I perish there." 

On several occasions emissaries of the rebel Commune 
came to him and tried to induce him and the members of the 
Revolutionary Tribunal to come " into its bosom," and to 
make common cause with the refugees and the outlaws. ^ 
They invited him to the Hotel de Ville. He sent them back. 
He answered that he recognised the Convention alone. 
Twice during the evening he sent Malarme to the Committee. 
He was anxious to make it known that he was at his post, 
at the Tribunal. Malarme, coming back, found him at 
supper with Morisan, the attendant in the refreshment- 
room, his wife, their daughter, and their son-in-law, Gillier, 

^ W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 39. ^ W. 434, No. 975, p. 23. 

3 Fouquier's Memorial for his defence. 



ii8 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

the secretary of the prosecutor's office.^ It was past mid- 
night. 

At this moment a torrential shower f eU upon Paris, flooding 
the streets, and dispersing the crowds and even the delegates 
from the Convention, who, by the light of torches, had 
just proclaimed the decree of outlawry. A sort of lull, an 
abatement, took place. A long silence. Then, suddenly 
on the other bank of the Seine, there was a volley of cannon 
and the trampling of troops. The Convention, on VouUand's 
proposal, had ordered Barras to lead his armed force against 
the Hotel de Ville, against the insurgent Communal House. 
Barras and Leonard Bourdon had put themselves at the 
head of the columns of the Convention, divided into two 
sections — one proceeding along the quays with Barras, the 
other along the Rue Saint-Honore with Bourdon. It was 
one o'clock in the morning. 

The Public Prosecutor, accompanied by Deguaigne, 
the usher, Budelot, the Tribunal's coachman, and Demay^ 
left the Palace of Justice, crossed the Pont-Neuf, and went 
to the Committees of Public Safety and of General Security, 
which had assembled together. He was anxious to be seen 
steadfast at his post. There he heard from Thuriot and 
Merlin (of Thionville) of the victory of the Convention. 
Maximilien Robespierre was grievously wounded. The 
Commune was beaten. 

Early morning approached. The gray dawn Ut up the 
victory of Thermidor. A new task was preparing for the 
Tribunal and for Fouquier. He returned with his three 
companions to the Palace of Justice. He had a right to a 
well-earned rest. His conscience testified to him that it 
would be difficult to have shown " purer behaviour " than 
his. It was half-past three, and he went to bed. 

But his sleep was of short duration. At five o'clock he 
was awakened by Leonard Bourdon, the Representative of 
the people, who brought him orders. 

^ W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 45 ter. 



CHAPTER V 

THE REACTION OF THERMIDOR AND FOUQUIER-TINVILLE'S 

ARREST 

SUSPENDED at six o'clock in the morning, the 
session of the Convention was resumed at nine. 
The Department of Paris came to congratulate 
the Assembly on having saved the country. The 
Revolutionary Tribunal was afterwards admitted to the bar. 
One of its members spoke : ^ 

" Citizens, representatives," he said, " you have just 
covered yourselves with glory ; we come to join our congratu- 
lations to those you will receive from the whole of France ; 
we come to glory in our own immovable confidence — and 
it will always be the same — in remaining attached to the 
national representation in spite of the efforts the conspirators 
last night did not cease to make to associate us with their 
crimes. Some traitors had crept into our bosom ; you have 
known how to distinguish them, and soon they shall feel 
the punishment due to their crimes. For our part, entirely 
devoted to the national representation and to our duty, 
we come to take your orders for the trial of the conspirators." 
(Applause.) 
Fouquier-Tinville then made an observation : — 
" There is a difficulty," he said, " which checks the 
progress of the Tribunal. The municipal officers are included 
among the great offenders whom you have outlawed. Now, 
in order to execute the decree against the rebels, it is only 
necessary to verify the identity of their persons. But in this 
respect I point out that there exists a decree requiring that 
this identity should be verified in the presence of two 
municipal officers of the accused Commune ; now, it is 
1 The Moniteur only calls him " the orator." 
119 



120 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

impossible to perform this formality in the present circum- 
stances when the municipal officers are themselves charged. 
I ask the Convention to remove this difficulty." ^ 

Thuriot answered: " The Convention ought to take measures 
in order that the conspirators may be punished without 
delay ; any delay would be to the prejudice of the Repubhc. 
The scaffold must be erected immediately, and with the heads 
of his accomplices must fall the head of that infamous Robes- 
pierre who proclaimed to us that he believed in the Supreme 
Being, and who only believed in the power of crime. The 
soil of the Republic must be purged of a monster who was 
in a position to have himself proclaimed king. I demand 
that the Tribunal withdraws to the Committee of General 
Security to take its orders and that it returns to its post," 

This proposal was carried. ^ 

On the same day, at one o'clock in the afternoon, the 
Revolutionary Tribunal held a pubUc session with open 
doors. Scellier presided. He had as assistant-judges 
Foucault, Bravet, Maire, Felix, Laporte, Hamy, Deliege, 
and Garnier-Launay.^ 

Fouquier-Tinville, assisted by his deputy, Liendon, was in 
his place, and demanded the appearance at the session of the 
twenty-two " conspirators," all decreed to be guilty of 
rebeUion and outlawed. They had been identified by 
witnesses, and, moreover, all of them had confessed. 

One by one the prisoners were introduced. The first was 
Maximilien Robespierre, carried on a stretcher, his head 
bandaged, and dying. His age ? Thirty-five. His identity 
had been attested by Pierre Vincent Augustin Lecoin, an em- 
ployee at the Commission of Relations, residing in Paris, at 
the Rue du Bac, and by Jean Fabre, an employee in the office 
of the Revolutionary Tribunal, residing in the Rue Jacob. 
— 2. Georges Couthon. — 3. Louis Jean Baptiste Lavalette, 
brigadier-general of the army of the North. — 4. Frangois 
Hanriot, ex-general of the armed forces of Paris. — 5. Rene 
Frangois Dumas, ex-President of the Revolutionary Tri- 

* Moniteur, 12th of Thermidor, year II. ' Moniteur, Ibid. 

3 Archives Nationales, W. 434, No, 975. 




vS AINT-JU ST 

membra du Comite oe Salut puklic 



THE ROLL CALL 121 

bunal. — 6. Antoine Saint-Just, ex-Deputy of the Convention, 
26 years old. — 7. Claude Francois Payan, ex-juror of the 
Revolutionary Tribunal, ex-agent of the Commune of Paris. 
— 8. Jacques Claude Bernard, ex -priest, member of the 
General Council of the Commune, and chief clerk in the 
Mayor's Office. — 9. Adrien Nicolas Gobeau, provisional 
deputy to Fouquier, member of the Commune of Paris. — 
10. Antoine Gency, cooper and ex-member of the General 
Council of the Commune. — 11. Nicolas Francois Vivier, 
ex-lawyer and judge of the Tribunal of the Third Arron- 
dissement, outlawed by the Convention. He had presided 
at the Jacobin Club the night before. 

Fouquier-Tinville rose and, laying down his hat and cloak, 
left the court. He did not wish to prosecute his friend, Lescot- 
Fleuriot, the ex-Mayor of Paris. His deputy, Liendon, 
took his place. ^ 

The roll-call went on. — 12. Jean Baptiste Edmond 
Lescot-Fleuriot, artist, ex-Mayor of Paris, 43 years old, 
born at Brussels. — 13. Antoine Simon, shoemaker, ex-member 
of the General Council of the Commune, residing in Paris 
at No. 32 Rue Marat (the Simon of the Temple, the Dauphin's 
tormentor). — 14. Denis Etienne Laurent, municipal officer. 
— 15. Jacques Louis Frederic Wouarne, an employee at the 
Commission of Commerce and Provisions. — 16. Jean 
Etienne Forrestier, smelter, member of the Commune. — 
17. Augustin Bon Joseph Robespierre (the younger), ex- 
Deputy of the Convention. — 18. Nicolas Guerin, member 
of the General Council of the Commune. — 19. Jean Baptiste 

^ But, as Public Prosecutor, Fouquier had demanded the appear- 
ance of his friend before the Tribunal. Here are the terms in which 
he did so : — 

" Citizens and representatives, 

" A decree of to-day, providing that the Mayor and ex- 
General Boulanger, both outlawed, shall be executed without delay, 
both being at the Committee, I request you to give orders that the 
gendarmes bearers of this present shall immediately bring them 
before the Tribunal, the judges being in session to execute the law. 

" Greeting and fraternity. 

" The loth of Thermidor of the Year II. of the Republic one and 
indivisible, A. Q. Fouquier." 



122 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

Mathieu Dhazard, hair-dresser and ex-member of the Com- 
mune. — 20. Christophe Cochefer, formerly an upholsterer, 
member of the General Council of the Commune. — 21. 
Charles Jacques Mathieu Bougon, an ex-messenger at the 
stamp office, ex-member of the General Council of the 
Commune. — 22. Jean Marie Guenet, timber merchant, 
member of the General Council of the Commune. 

The Tribunal ordered that the twenty-two above- 
mentioned conspirators should be at once handed over to 
the executioner of criminal judgments, the execution to 
take place on the Place de la Revolution. By five o'clock 
on the loth of Thermidor, they were dead. 

On the following day, the nth of Thermidor, seventy 
outlaws, members of the General Council of the rebel Com- 
mune, were handed over to the executioner of criminal judg- 
ments.^ Fouquier had, on the previous day, asked for 
ten or eleven carts to be sent to the Conciergerie for this 
execution. We know this from the evidence of Etienne 
Desmorest, the executioner's assistant. But the official 
report of the session has no mention of the Public Prosecutor's 
name. He is represented by Liendon and Royer, his 
deputies. 

On the following day a last " batch " of twelve members 
of the General Council of the Commune went to the scaffold. 
They were " convicted of having taken part in the liberticidal 
and rebellious deUberations of the Commune of Paris on the 
ninth day of the present month, and on the night between 

1 Charles Huant Desboisseaux, the juror of the Revolutionary 
Tribunal and member of the Commune, who had. sat with Fouquier 
in the Hall of Equality on the 9th of Thermidor, and afterwards 
went with Fouquier to dine at the house of Vergnhes — this Desbois- 
seaux was included among the 70 outlaws. 

During the tragic night he had gone out of the Commune between 
midnight and one o'clock. Wandering about, he had been at differ- 
ent eating-houses ; he had supped with Coffinhal, at the Ecu, in the 
Rue d'Enfer, then had gone home to see his wife ; he did not find her, 
saw the seals on his house, and again wandered about until six 
o'clock in the evening, and finally entered the house of Citizen 
Martin, a lemonade seller, on the Quai aux Ormes. Information 
was lodged against him, and he was arrested there, and brought to 
the Conciergerie. 



FOUQUIER DENOUNCED 123 

the ninth and tenth, and of having participated in the said 
dehberations whilst it (the Commune) sheltered in its bosom 
traitors ordered by the National Convention to be arrested." ^ 

At the session of the Convention on the 14th of Thermidor, 
Lecointre (of Versailles) demanded the repeal of the law of 
the 22nd of Prairial, relating to the organisation of the 
Revolutionary Tribunal. 

" It is a veritable martial law," he said. 

The saying was true. It met with success. There was 
applause. The Convention unanimously repealed the law. 

But the Tribunal, whose reconstruction the Committee 
had proposed at the Convention, was about to be revived. 
And at the head of the list presented by Barere, we read : 
" Public Prosecutor, Fouquier-Tinville." 

An unexpected and striking event then happened. Freron 
the journalist, a violent man, " the saviour of the south," 
Freron, who on the 9th of Thermidor, had demanded the 
arrest of Couthon, Saint-Just, and Lebas, made a speech 
denouncing Fouquier. 

" All Paris demands from you the richly merited 
punishment of Fouquier-Tinville. You have sent to the 
Revolutionary Tribunal the infamous Dumas and the 
jurors who, along with him, shared the crimes of the scoundrel 
Robespierre. I am going to prove to you that Fouquier 
is as guilty as they were, for if the President, if the jurors, 
were influenced by Robespierre, the Public Prosecutor was 
equally influenced by him, for he drew up the writs of indict- 
ment with the same intention. I demand that Fouquier- 
Tinville be sent to stew in the heU of blood which he has 
shed. I demand a decree for his accusation." 

Tumult. Applause on all sides. Cries of : " Put the 
decree of accusation to the vote." 

Turreau opposed the decree. " It would be honouring 
that scoundrel too much. I demand that he be simply put 
on trial before the Revolutionary Tribunal." 

This proposal was carried, applause breaking forth several 
times. By virtue of this decree, the Committee of General 
1 Archives Nationales, W. 434, No. 978, 



124 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

Security passed a resolution the same day that Fouquier- 
Tinville, thePubHc Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal, 
be arrested immediately and taken to the prison of the 
Conciergerie ; that he be brought to trial without delay, and 
that seals be placed on his papers. Two officers of the 
Committee, Chandelier and Limage, were charged with the 
execution of these measures. 

The victory of the men of Thermidor was complete. 
Thus, the man who, four days before, went into the prosecu- 
tor's office in the Revolutionary Tribunal, garbed in his short 
cloak and wearing his raised Henry Quatre hat, who pleaded 
against Maximilien Robespierre, against Saint- Just, against 
his own enemy, Dumas, who " performed their toilet and 
fitted them out for kingdom come," was to learn at his own 
expense that, in its continuous evolutions. Humanity some- 
times displays a sudden and pitiless abruptness. 

On the afternoon of that 14th of Thermidor, about half- 
past two o'clock, the news reached Fouquier that he was 
to be brought to trial. He was in the refreshment-room 
of the Tribunal, drinking his usual glass of brandy, and 
talking over the events of the day with his colleagues. Two 
men entered and went up to him. One of them was a small 
hunchback, Jean Feuilles, a secretary in the prosecutor's 
office, and devoted to the Public Prosecutor, the other was 
unknown to him ; both were deeply moved. 

Feuilles approached Fouquier and taking him aside 
said: 

" Here is a citizen who comes from the Convention. 
He has been a witness of all that has just happened there. 
You are to be put on your trial and are about to be arrested. 
This citizen is Cauchois, Poincarre's uncle." 

Fouquier knew Poincarre, a secretary in the prosecutor's 
office, well. He had confidence in him, for the prosecutor's 
office had not ceased to be favourable to the Public Prose- 
cutor, while the registrar's office was hostile to him since 
the arrest of Paris, called Fabricius, the chief registrar of 
the Tribunal, and since the execution of Legris, the 
registrar's clerk. 



LAST HOURS OF FREEDOM 125 

" Did you hear the decree for arresting me ? " inquired 
Fouquier, 

" Yes, I heard it." 

" I am quite easy in my mind. I am not guilty. I will 
wait until they come to arrest me." 

And he swallowed his brandy. 

But a few moments afterwards, he left the refreshment- 
room, went up to his office, and spoke of the decree that 
had just been passed against him, adding that he feared 
nothing. He afterwards went to warn his wife, the gentle 
and loving Henriette Jean Gerard d'Aucourt, whom he mar- 
ried as his second wife twelve years before. Having reas- 
sured her, he proceeded to the Tuileries, to the Convention. 

For the last time he pursued the way he had so often trav- 
elled during the past sixteen months — over the Pont-Neuf, 
and along the Quays. The heat of the August afternoon 
was overwhelming. It was three o'clock. The murmur of the 
city boomed in his ears. But he did not hear it. He did 
not see the familiar spectacles of the streets. He walked on, 
in a maze, in a dream that would not end. The Com- 
mittees would listen to the evidence. He was not guilty. 
He was easy in his mind. Yet it was not long before that, 
returning one evening from the Committee of Public Safety, 
as he was crossing the Pont du Change, he seized his com- 
panion, and, pointing to the Seine, exclaimed : " Look 
how red it is ! " Was he drunk that evening ? Or was he 
overwhelmed by fatigue, by the weight of his work, his 
colossal labour, he who, during the last sixteen months, 
had frequently not slept three hours a night ? To-day, this 
14th of Thermidor, the Seine was not red. Its changing 
waters flowed on, dancing in the light. With his hat puUed 
down over his face, he proceeded along the quays. He 
paused before the Louvre of the Valois, his vigorous, 
thick-set form wrapped in his blue frock-coat. He 
continued his way to the Tuileries. 

At that hour, ChandeHer, Limage, and five members of the 
Committee of General Security, accompanied by Debreaux, 
the police-officer, presented themselves at his dwelling. They 



126 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

found there only a woman and children. They called upon 
Citizeness Fouquier-Tinville to tell them where the Public 
Prosecutor was. 

" At the Convention, at least that is what the messengers 
of the Tribunal have said." 

" What has he gone to do at the Convention ? " 

" I don't know, at all." 

" You are deceiving us, for you knew that a warrant 
had been issued for your husband's arrest and trial." 

" Yes, I knew." 

" Who told you ? " 

"He, himself ; but I do not know who told him. All I 
know is that the news was brought to him at his office ; 
but I do not know the bearer. The office attendants might 
tell you." 

They immediately asked of the first attendant they 
saw, Simon Malparti, if he knew who warned Fouquier. 

" A private citizen who is the uncle of Poincarre, a secre- 
tary in the prosecutor's office." 

Malparti offered to take Chandelier into the offices to look 
for this uncle in the presence of Deroziere, the pohceman. 
Cauchois was found in the refreshment room. 

He was put through the usual cross-examination. He 
told how he informed his nephew, and how, when he heard 
it, " the little hunchback " as he was called at the Tribunal, 
said that Fouquier ought to be warned immediately. He 
had taken the Public Prosecutor aside and had told him that 
there was a warrant for his arrest ; that he had heard the 
decree pronounced. Fouquier had answered, in the presence 
of DeUege, the Vice-President of the Tribunal, that he was 
quite easy in his mind, and was waiting until they came to 
arrest him. It was Malparti who told Limage and Chandeher 
that, when he left the refreshment-room, Fouquier went up 
to his office, and afterwards to the Convention. 

It was the httle hunchback's turn to appear before the 
members of the Committee. 

His name was Jean Feuilles. He was twenty-seven years 
old. He was born at Viviers, in the district of Coyron, in 



THE WARRANT OF ARREST 127 

the Ardeche, He was an employee in the prosecutor's office 
of the Revolutionary Tribunal, and resided in the City, at 
No. 14, Rue Lanterne. He confirmed the statements of 
Cauchois. They overwhelmed him with questions. 

" From whom did you hear that a warrant had been issued 
for Fouquier-Tinville's arrest ? " 

" I heard it from a citizen of whom I know nothing except 
that he is a friend of Citizen Poincarre." 

" Did you not say that the Public Prosecutor should be 
warned at once ? " 

" I said so along with several others who were present, 
as to who spoke first, I do not remember. All I know is that 
the news was brought to the witness-room, that Poincarre 
communicated it to those who were in the Council Chamber, 
and that it was when Poincarre came down from the Chamber 
that it was said warning ought to be given to Fouquier- 
Tinville, who was then in the refreshment room." 

" Could you give the names of those who were present and 
who said with you that Fouquier ought to be warned ? " 

" I cannot be certain of any of them. I know that Poin- 
carre was present ; I went up with him to the refreshment- 
room. Poincarre did not come up." 

" You are afraid of giving the names of citizens, but the 
truth will come out." 

" If I were sure, I would give the names, but I am afraid 
of speaking at a venture." 

" Yet a witness declares that it was you who spoke." 

" Certainly, I spoke." 

" With what intention ? " 

" I had none." 

" Did you say that some one ought to go up to the refresh- 
ment-room to warn him ? " 

" I said so, and as a matter of fact I went up with several 
citizens whose names I do not remember and with the man 
who brought us the news." 

" Did you not take him to the refreshment-room ? " 

" I went with him there ; that is all I can say." 

" Who spoke in the refreshment-room ? " 



128 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

" I said to Fouquier : ' Here is a citizen who comes from 
the Convention and who has been a witness of what has just 
taken place.' After which, that citizen, Poincarre's friend, 
informed Fouquier of the decree which ordered his arrest." 

" Yet a witness states that it was you who took him by 
the arm, brought him to the refreshment-room, took Fouquier 
aside, and told him what you had just heard." 

" I do not remember exactly what took place ; as regards 
what I said to Fouquier, I refer you to my previous answer." 

" Knowing that this decree was in existence, instead of 
warning him, why did not you, yourself, arrest him ? " 

" I was not certain about it." 

Cauchois and Feuilles were searched and their papers 
examined, but nothing suspicious was found. The two 
employees of the prosecutor's office were arrested, and taken 
to the Committee of General Security as suspected of having 
helped in Fouquier-Tinville's escape. 

A long search then began of the premises of the Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal and the Public Prosecutor's apartments. 
All the documents found in the prosecutor's office and the 
registry were kept there under the guard of Captain Adnet 
and his lieutenant, Bernard. Sentries were placed at all 
the doors of the registry and the prosecutor's office. The 
papers in Fouquier's apartments were collected and placed 
in a cupboard near the door, to the right of the entrance-hall. 
Citizens Courtier and Derozieres, the gendarmes, were 
appointed their guardians. Those which the commissioners 
found in " Citizeness Fouquier's " portfolio were placed 
under seal. 

The windows of the apartment opened on a little balcony 
overlooking the Quai de I'Horloge. In the course of their 
search. Courtier and Derozieres, who had gone to the 
window, noticed a bundle of papers that had fallen or been 
thrown on the balcony. This the agents of the Committee 
of General Security seized, and it was found to contain six 
documents which were placed in an envelope to be sent to 
the Committee. 

These judicial operations were not finished when Captain 



FOUQUIER AT THE CONCIERGERIE 129 

Adnet and Lieutenant Bernard announced an important 
piece of news to the commissioners. Fouquier-Tinville had 
just gone back to the Conciergerie, where he had surrendered 
himself as a prisoner, Botot-Dumesnil, commander of 
the poUce attached to the Tribunal, placed him under arrest.^ 
Richard, the turnkey, inscribed his name on the prison 
registrar. The doors of the gaol closed upon him. 

But the Conciergerie was full of those " counter-revolu- 
tionaries " and those "conspirators" whom the Public 
Prosecutor was reserving for the " batches " of the follow- 
ing days. Two days previously, on the 12th of Thermidor, 
if we are to believe an usher of the Tribunal, he had said : 
" The people must be satisfied. The guillotine is busy. It 
will be busier still." ^ Fouquier was recognised. Hoots and 
shouts of rage echoed all about him, " Wretch ! Scoundrel ! " 
hostile and desperate voices called out. He was surrounded 
and driven into a corner. He was on the point of falUng 
when the janitor and his assistants intervened. To protect 
this extraordinary prisoner, they shut him up in a dark room, 
under the guard of a gendarme. 

There, at the mercy of his own thoughts, in the dark, like 
a wild beast shut in his den, he waited and thought. 

What hatred he had unloosed ! What a cursed, execrated 
name was his ! How aU those people detested him ! And 
yet he asked himself whether he deserved such a fate. Day 
and night he had worked " to lay the foundations of the 
Revolution " so far as it lay in his power. Ah, why on the 
22nd of Prairial, had his name not been erased from the list 
of those who composed the Tribunal ? Why would they 

1 " Paris, 14th of Thermidor of the year II. of the French Republic, 
one and indivisible. 
" Citizen President, 

" I inform you that in conformity with the decree of the 
Convention of to-day's date, I have had Fouquier, the ex-Public 
Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal, placed under arrest, and 
that he is now detained at the Conciergerie. 
" Greeting and fraternity, 

" Major commanding the Gendarmerie of the Tribunals, 

" B. DUMESNIL." 

* Joly's evidence at Fouquier-Tinville 's trial. 
I 



130 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

regard him as the creature of Robespierre and Saint- Just ? 
Why treat him as a conspirator, as an enemy of the country, 
he who " prided himself on being known as having always 
succoured oppressed innocence, the poor and the patriotic " ? 

The night was passing. From hour to hour the vision of 
his past work grew clearer before him. His methodical mind, 
accustomed to the quibbles of legal procedure, began to 
classify the charges that were to be brought against him, 
which he had learned that afternoon at the Committee. Was 
he thinking of his loved ones, of his wife and children who 
were in their rooms in the Palace of Justice watching in 
suspense ? Doubtless ; but he seemed to have been neither 
softened nor dejected. He was coolly preparing for the 
struggle, just as he coolly performed the duties of his 
terrible magistracy. He was going to set to work on his 
defence. 

As the night drew to an end, he was stiU writing, drawing 
up his first memorial. This he sent to the Committee of 
General Security, with a short note to Louis (of the Bas- 
Rhin). 

" Paris, this i6th of Thermidor of the second year of the 
Republic, one and indivisible. 
" Citizen Representative, 

" Deign to oblige me by presenting to the Com- 
mittee of which you are a member the enclosed memorial 
which I send you ; I am innocent, I ask for justice. 

" Greeting and fraternity, 

" A. Q. FOUQUIER." 

The entire memorial should be read to show Fouquier's 
state of mind at the moment following his arrest. The 
lawyer, the subtle Procurator, aimed at proving that he 
was not guilty. He wished to appear free from anxiety. 
He thought it necessary to destroy one by one the prejudices 
and the imputations against him. He would invoke in his 
favour humanity and justice. He claimed to be innocent, 
a victim even, and seemed to believe that he would soon 
be free. 



HIS DEFENCE 131 

*' Memorial for the Defence, to the General Committee of Public 
Safety of the Convention." 

" On behalf of Antoine Quentin Fouquier, ex-Public Prose- 
cutor to the Revolutionary Tribunal, who surrendered himself 
voluntarily at the Conciergerie, and was brought before 
the Revolutionary Tribunal by a decree of the 14th of 
Thermidor." 

" I. I am charged with having made out writs of indict- 
ment against patriots. An examination of the registers 
refutes that charge ; for by inspecting them one can see that 
for the most part the indictments have been directed against 
acknowledged conspirators. It is possible, however, that 
among the informations lodged by malevolent persons, there 
may have been some directed against patriots. It was my 
great anxiety to protect myself from such scheming ; and 
if such a thing has happened, it is certainly a misfortune 
that renders me guilty ; for, since informations and charges 
came into existence, the law imposes on the Public Prosecu- 
tor the duty of ordering the proceedings against the suspects 
indicated. It is for the jurors to determine in their wisdom 
the value of the charge ; and the conduct of the Public 
Prosecutor in such a case is to bring forward the prisoner's 
defence. Now, it is notorious that at the Tribunal I have 
never neglected this glorious task. I pride myself on being 
known as having always succoured oppressed innocence, 
the poor, and the patriotic. 

"2. I am charged with having been one of the creatures of 
Robespierre and Saint-Just. I have never been in the 
latter's house. I was even ignorant of where he lived. As 
for Robespierre, I have only been at his house once, the day 
of the attempt on Citizen CoUot d'Herbois, just as I presented 
myself at the house of the latter, I have never been there 
since. I defy anybody to prove the contrary. 

" 3. I am suspected of having had knowledge of the 
conspiracy which broke out on the ninth. On my honour 
I protest that I had no knowledge of that conspiracy until 
the moment of its discovery by the Convention ; I protest 



132 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

similarly that no overture was made to me by any of the 
conspirators, and that if one of them had presumed to do so, 
I should have had the courage to inform against him as 
I have had the courage to fill the perilous post I occupied 
since the creation of the Tribunal. If any of these 
scoundrels had made overtures to me in any way what- 
ever regarding that horrible conspiracy, should I, on 
the loth of Thermidor, have asked in court, as I did, for the 
law to be applied against the Robespierres, Saint-Just, 
Fleuriot, Payan, Hanriot, and Dumas, all acknowledged 
heads of that conspiracy ? Should I not have rendered 
myself liable to be pointed out by them, if, in truth, I had 
been their accompUce ? I have fulfilled my duty towards 
those monsters, as towards all others, because I have a 
pure conscience and have never been implicated in any 
plot. 

" In support of that conduct, I point out that, when dining 
about four months ago at the house of Citizen Lecointre, 
the Deputy, with several others, in particular Citizen Merlin 
(of Thionville), I had a conversation with him that doubtless 
he will remember, which will prove how much I detested 
Robespierre's despotism. 

" A few days before the last reorganization of the Tribunal, 
being informed that it was desired to reduce the number of 
jurors from nine to seven, I believed it my duty to represent 
to the Committee of Public Safety that the Tribunal having 
up to that time enjoyed public confidence, this reduction 
would infallibly cause it to lose that confidence. It would 
provide an opportunity for saying that the change was only 
contrived because these responsible for this reduction had 
not found enough creatures devoted to them. Robespierre, 
then on the Committee, shut my mouth by saying that it 
was only aristocrats who could speak in such a way. 

" Several other members of the Committee were present. 
This remark caused my name, as I have since been told, to be 
erased several times from the list of those appointed by the 
decree of the 22nd of Prairial. I do not know to what I 
owe the misfortune of having been restored to the hst, for. 



HIS DEFENCE 133 

but for that restoration, I should not to-day be groaning in 
chains. 

' ' As for the provisions of the decree of the 22nd of Prairial, 
I have several times spoken of their rigour to the Committee 
of General Security ; several members must remember it ; 
they themselves acknowledged the severity of the provisions. 
They must have asked daily for their reform ; but, as for me, 
I could not refuse to execute the decree without being regarded 
and even treated as a counter-revolutionary. The members 
of the Committee of General Security must also remember 
that I have frequently spoken to them of the persistent 
opposition of Robespierre to the execution of the decree 
relating to Catherine Theot,i and that it was agreed that 
Citizen Vadier should make a supplementary report. As a 
result of this I sent him all the documents, and they are 
now in his possession. 

" For about a month the increased work of my post has 
not allowed me to go to the Jacobin Club. I have not, in 
consequence, heard any of the speeches or denunciations of 
Robespierre's conspiracy, or the diatribes of the scoundrel 
Dumas. I have heard them spoken of, and it is known 
how severely I censured them. Citizen Martel, the Deputy, 
is also in a position to attest how, in a conversation I had 
with him about eight days before the conspiracy broke out, 
I blamed the despotism that Robespierre exercised over 
the Committee of Public Safety. 

" My conduct on the 9th of Thermidor is easy to estab- 
lish. I was in court until half-past two o'clock. I dined 
with several colleagues, and returned to my office at the 
Palace about half-past five in the afternoon. The clerks, 
attendants, and other persons employed at the Tribunal are 
in a position to attest this fact. They are also able to prove 

1 The visionary whom Vadier had represented, in his speech in 
the Convention on the 27th of Prairial in the year II., as keeping, 
at her dwelHng in the Rue Contrescarpe, " a primary school of fanati- 
cism," and whom he gave out to be an agent of Pitt. She was re- 
ported to the Revolutionary Tribunal. But Robespierre caused an 
order to be conveyed to Fouquier-Tinville to postpone her trial. 
See Vilate's memoirs. The Mysteries of the Mother of God Unveiled. 



134 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

that, in spite of the many emissaries sent to me by the 
Commune to induce the members of the Tribunal and myself 
to enter its bosom, and to acknowledge it alone, my answer 
was that I acknowledged only the Convention, that I would 
remain at my post, as I did until one o'clock in the morning 
of the loth, and that, accompanied only by Citizens Desgaign6 
the usher, Beudelot, and Demay, I went to the assembled 
Committees of Public Safety and General Security, where I 
was seen by a great part of the members and by Citizens 
Thuriot and Merlin (of Thionville), the Deputies, who 
went there. I returned to the Palace, where Citizen Leonard 
Bourdon found me on the loth at half-past five ; all these 
facts are notorious and easy to prove. It is difficult to 
show a purer conduct. 

" Yet I am summoned before the Tribunal, charged with 
having vexed and persecuted the patriots, although, at 
the same time, I am called a wretch and a scoundrel by all 
the counter-revolutionaries who are detained at the Concier- 
gerie. I am forced to stay all day in a room without win- 
dows in order to keep myself from their rage, notwithstanding 
all the efforts of the janitor. 

' ' However, consulting my conscience, I have done nothing 
to bring me to such a fate. During the sixteen months 
that I have performed the painful duties of Public Prosecutor 
I have drawn up the writ of indictment against Marie An- 
toinette, and caused all the great conspirators to feel the . 
sword of the Law. I, who would not find in any country 
an inch of ground to lay my head, I, who am the bom enemy 
of all counter-revolutionaries, who would hew me in pieces 
if they could, I, who have spent night and day in laying the 
foundations of the Revolution so far as it lay in my power ; 
I, who have never acted save according to the laws eman- 
ating from the Convention ; I, who do not fear the severest 
examination of all my papers even though I should have to 
remain the longer in chains ! The greater part of the 
members of the Committees of Public Safety and General 
Security know my principles, my actions, and my thoughts ; 
it remains therefore for me only to submit myself entirely 



THE TRUTH 135 

to their justice. My memorial has been written without 
pretension and even with a sort of neghgence in style which 
comes from the sad position in which I find myself ; but it 
expresses the truth. 

" A. Q. FOUQUIER." 1 

" Paris, this i6th of Thermidor. 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 500, ist dossier, p. iii. 



PART II 
THE PRISONER 



CHAPTER VI 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE PREPARES HIS DEFENCE 

THOUGH a prisoner at the Conciergerie, the ex-Pubhc 
Prosecutor was. not kept in soHtary confinement. 
News from outside reached him. He knew through 
the vigilant agency of his wife what was happening 
at the Convention and at the Jacobin Club. She wrote to 
him and kept him acquainted with what was said and what 
preparations were being made against him. 

He was neither downcast nor demorahsed. He was 
tenacious, shrewd, and apparently calm. His defence 
engaged all his attention. It may be summed up in this : 
that during the past sixteen months, he had provoked 
(it is his own expression) the trials of more than two thousand 
four hundred accused persons. He claimed that he had 
acted only according to the decrees of the Convention, in 
conformity with the laws " of justice and humanity." He 
was tireless in furnishing proofs of this with a sort of 
unconscious obstinacy. 

His first memorial for his defence was dated the i6th of 
Thermidor. On the 17th, in a second memorial, he proceeded 
to insist upon certain isolated facts, giving them a special 
importance, discussing them, refuting complaints. He had 
just learned that the imputation made against him of having 
summoned patriots before the Revolutionary Tribunal had 
taken a more precise form, that those patriots had been 
named, that they were the inhabitants of Strasburg, who 
had been tried and guillotined less than two months before, 
on the 29th of Messidor (July 17). He hastened to reply 
to the Committee in a " supplement " to his memorial for 
the defence of the day before. He proceeded to set out the 

139 



140 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

facts. " Deprived of all documents/' he wrote from 
memory, yet his memorial was excellent. 

Lebas and Saint-Just, sent on a mission to the Depart- 
ments of the Upper and Lower Rhine, had caused the arrest 
of Euloge Schneider, " the executioner of Alsace," who had 
been convicted of exactions, extortions, violations, crimes 
of all sorts. Euloge Schneider was none other than the 
PubUc Prosecutor of Strasburg, Fouquier's provincial 
colleague. 

The Strasburg patriots in question, Yung, a shoemaker, 
Michelot,^ a paymaster of the army of the Rhine, Monnet, 
a teacher, Frederic Edelmann, a musician, and Louis 
Edelmann, a musical instrument maker, were, according to 
Fouquier, Schneider's partisans. They declaimed to such 
an extent against his arrest and the doings of the represen- 
tatives of the people, calhng them " disorganisers " and 
" cannibals," that Leban and Saint-Just had caused them to 
be arrested and sent before the Revolutionary Tribunal. 
Fouquier thus exculpates himself : 

" The documents relating to the affair were sent to me 
by the Committee of Public Safety. I made out the indict- 
ment from those documents. In the course of the pleadings, 
I took care to remark that these suspects had given great 
proofs of patriotism since the Revolution. I laid stress, 
for this purpose, on all the attestations that they produced 
for me. But several of those attestations were contra- 
dicted by later retractations from the regenerated society 
of Strasburg, all of which are attached to the documents 
in the registry of the Tribunal. One of the accused has been 
proved innocent. Where, then, is my crime in this busi- 
ness ? Could I refuse to make out an indictment or to bring 
to trial individuals sent to the Tribunal by representa- 
tives of the people in the course of their mission ? I could 
no more do that in their case than in the case of those sent by 
the Convention. The Law imposed that duty on me. . . ." ^ 

What he does not say, what he cannot say, is that when 

* Michelot was acquitted. 

« Archives Nationales, W. 500, ist dossier, p. no. 




ANTOINE QUENTIN FOUQUIER-TINVILLE 
Froj?i a contemporary lithograph 



THE TWO EDELMANNS 141 

the representatives of the people on mission to the army of 
the Rhine had recovered from their prejudices and were 
convinced of the patriotism and innocence of the accused 
persons, they had caused them to be set at Uberty. The 
documents of the Revolutionary Tribunal^ contain instruct- 
tive certificates given to those Republican patriots by the 
administrative body of Strasburg. Suddenly, on the night 
between the 12th and 13th of Prairial, they had again 
been arrested by order of the Committee of Public Safety. 
It was impossible for them to guess the motives for this 
arrest. Was it that, under the sway of informers and of 
terror, " the regenerated society " of Strasburg denied the 
good certificates which the administrative body had given ? 
Vainly may one search the documents of the Tribunal for 
those denials. 

Fouquier says that he took care, " in the course of the 
pleadings, to remark that the suspects had given great proofs 
of patriotism since the Revolution." But this observation 
in favour of the accused persons was made orally, and nothing 
concerning it exists among the documents in the registry. 
What did exist and what still exists there are, on the contrary, 
these lines of the indictment, made out and signed by 
Fouquier, and copied by one of his secretaries : 

" The two Edelmanns are charged with having been 
the associates and principal heads of the faction of Schneider 
whom national justice has struck with its sword. . . . 
They have become instruments of the counter-revolutionaries 
and partisans of the suspected persons in custody," Each 
of the jurors could have read those Unes in the copy of the 
indictment that was provided for him. They clearly 
marked out the brothers Edelmann for the guillotine. 

In his " supplement " of the 17th of Thermidor, Fouquier 
also lays stress, for his defence, on the fact that the plead- 
ings of the Tribunal, in regard to the Strasburg patriots, 
" in spite of the rigour of the law of Prairial, lasted nearly 
three hours," Now on that day, 34 accused persons, 34 
arraigned persons as Fouquier called them, 34 prisoners 
* W, 421, dossier 956, 3rd part. 



142 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

grouped by him in a single " batch," in one and the same 
indictment, had appeared at the hearing. The five men of 
Strasburg sat on the prisoners' benches beside a freeholder 
of the Charente-Inferieure, a courier of the Committee of 
Public Safety, a wheelwright and locksmith of Vaugirard, 
a man from the Ardeche, a syndic from the Abbey of Andlau 
(Bas-Rhin), a secretary of the popular tribunal of Marseilles, 
a farmer of the Department of the Rhone, a hair-dresser of 
Bar-le-Duc, a former merchant, the President of the Revolu- 
tionary Committee of CHchy, accused of having had the 
impertinence to ask " whether his ass was not in the Com- 
mune," the wife of the cook of the English ambassador at 
Paris, a teacher of mathematics of the Rue de la Verrerie, 
Mulot de la Menardiere, a citizen of Compiegne, and sixteen 
nuns and Carmehte sisters. Out of 34 accused persons, 30 
were sent to the scaffold on that 29th of Messidor. 

It is possible that the pleadings in regard to the Strasburg 
patriots — one of whom, Michelot, was acquitted — lasted 
nearly three hours. Fouquier affirms that the fact is known. 
It remains, none the less : ist, that the brothers Edelmann, 
the shoemaker Yung, and the teacher Monnet were exe- 
cuted ; 2nd, that those Alsatians were despatched to the 
Barrier of Vincennes with 26 other male and female com- 
panions in misfortune who had come to Paris from the four 
corners of France ; 3rd, that they were treated as con- 
spirators although they were not even acquainted with 
one another. It was doubtless to avert the charge of so 
monstrous an abuse of power that Fouquier took care 
to end his Supplement with these lines : 

" There is an important reflection, Citizen-Representatives, 
that I invite you to make in your wisdom. That is that during 
the sixteen months that I have occupied this rigorous 
office of Public Prosecutor I have provoked the trials of more 
than two thousand four hundred counter-revolutionaries, 
each more furious than the other. Neither fortune nor 
consideration could stop me. The execution of the laws, 
justice and humanity, such has always been my rule of 
conduct. This firm and invariable course has made me 



"I RELY ON YOUR JUSTICE" 143 

an incalculable number of enemies among aristocrats and 
others. That is the source of the imputations that are made 
against me. Ought I to expect such a fate, I, who for the 
last sixteen months have often not slept three hours a night ? 
Never was a request for pardon made by me to the Com- 
mittees except on behalf of patriots and unfortunate persons. 
How, after such conduct, can I be taxed with having insti- 
tuted proceedings against patriots ? I rely always on your 
justice. A. Q. Fouquier. This 17th of Thermidor." ^ 

On the same day he wrote to Louis (of the Bas-Rhin), a 
member of the Committee of General Security and a Deputy 
of the Convention. He requested him " to give orders " 
that the gendarme stationed in his room should be with- 
drawn. He asked for a httle air, hoping that the Committee 
would authorise the gaoler of the Conciergerie to place him 
in a room adjoining his own apartments. ^ He would be 
better off there. He could devote himself effectively to his 
work. 

Two days later, on the 19th of Thermidor, he had drawn 
up a fresh document of considerable length which he entitled. 
General Memorial for My Defence. He addressed it to the 
Convention. 

On many points this Memorial is a repetition of its 
predecessor. But in it Fouquier gives his defence a 
development all the more interesting as it is only from 
these documents that we know to-day how the ex-Public 
Prosecutor faced his judges. 

Meanwhile, the reorganisation of the Revolutionary Tri- 
bunal was conducted rapidly, in a new spirit and with new 
men. The sanguinary law of the 22nd of Prairial was 
repealed. The question of intention was restored. This 
was the accession of a new form of jurisprudence. 

Fouquier then adopted another course with the Conven- 
tion. Towards the end of the session of the 21st of Thermidor 
(August 8, 1794), presided over by Merhn (of Douai), when 
Lakanal had just given an account of the state of public 

^ Archives Nationales, W. 500, ist dossier, p. no. 
* W. 500, ist dossier, p. 108. 



144 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

feeling in Dordogne and the neighbouring departments, a 
secretary read the following letter : 

" Citizen President, I have matters of importance to the 
pubUc interest as well as necessary for my own justification 
to communicate to the Convention. I sohcit, in consequence, 
from the Convention the favour of being admitted to the 
bar in order to expound them before it. Signed : A. Q. 
FouQUiER, ex-Pubhc Prosecutor to the Revolutionary 
Tribunal, and under arrest." 

Lecointre (of Versailles) immediately addressed the 
House. 

" I convert into the form of a motion Fouquier-Tinville's 
petition, not in order that he may escape the sword of the 
law, but in order that the Convention may learn from his 
own mouth what were the levers that moved him." 

There was applause. The Convention resolved that 
Fouquier-Tinville be brought to the bar and there heard. 

PochoUe ^ : " Fouquier-Tinville can only come to speak of 
himself or of others. He ought not to speak of himself except 
before the Revolutionary Tribunal. (Murmurs.) It seems 
to me that no different measures ought to be taken in regard 
to him than in regard to other accused persons." 

One of the secretaries then read the decree passed against 
Fouquier. 

Lefiot ^: "It does not seem to me possible to grant the 
request made by Fouquier-Tinville. He is an immoral man 
and has been condemned by public opinion. It is clear that 
he can only come here to throw the firebrand of discord, 
in continuance of the system which he adopted while filling 
his office. He can come here to kindle hatred. (Murmurs. 

^ Pierre Pomponne Am6dee, Deputy for the Seine-Inferieure. 
He, along with Charlier, caused Commune affranchie to be given back 
its name of Lyon on the 4th of Fructidor of the year II. (August 21, 

1794)- 

^ Jean-Alban, Deputy'for the Nievre, distinguished himself by his 
opposition to the course which the Convention followed after the gth 
of Thermidor of the year II., and, above aU, after the ist of Prairial 
of the year III. He was arrested on the 21st of Thermidor of the 
year III. (August 6, 1795) and remained nearly three months in 
prison. 



BEFORE THE CONVENTION 145 

Several voices : " There is no hatred among the members 
of the Convention.") I say that parties have existed. I 
say that it is to be feared that this person may come to 
revive them. (Further murmurs.) I mean that if he were 
referred back to the Committees it is possible that he would 
accuse the Committees and that the truth would not be 
known. Well, then, appoint a Commission from among 
yourselves. (Murmurs.) I had to say what was in my 
mind." 

The President : " The observation not finding any support, 
I put it to the vote that the resolution be carried." 

The resolution was carried. Shortly afterwards, the Presi- 
dent announced that Fouquier-Tinville had arrived. The 
Convention ordered him to be admitted. He entered and 
the President gave him permission to speak. 

Fouquier-Tinville : " Having been informed that the 
warrant of arrest that has been issued against me was 
based chiefly upon presumed conferences with Robespierre, 
because I went every evening to the Committee of Public 
Safety, I considered that I ought to ask to be heard by 
the Convention so as to give it an account of the facts and 
motives of those proceedings. 

" Until the advent of the Revolutionary Government, the 
Tribunal and the Public Prosecutor had no intercourse with 
the Committee of Public Safety, unless when they were 
summoned to it. Their intercourse was closer with the 
Committee of General Security, to which is entrusted the 
supervision of arrests and the revolutionary police of the 
Repubhc. However, they did not go even to this Com- 
mittee, unless they were summoned. Fifteen days after the 
establishment of the Revolutionary Government, I was sum- 
moned to the Committee of Public Safety. When I reached 
the room outside that in which the Committee deliberates, 
Robespierre came to me and made a violent scene because 
I did not keep the Committee acquainted with what was 
taking place at the Tribunal. I told him that it was not 
usual for me to do this, that I had as yet received no orders 
to do it, but that I would do so if that was the wish of the 



146 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

Committee. He answered me, in that despotic tone that is 
known, that the Committee so desired. After that I went every 
evening to the Committee and on several days I saw him alone 
in the same room where I met him the first time, and where 
he heaped very bitter reproaches on me because I did not 
cause such-and-such generals and individuals to be brought 
to trial. 

" Finally, one day I was brought into the Committee, and 
I gave it an account of all the doings of the Tribunal. At 
the period of Hebert's trial, closer relations were established. 
I acquainted the assembled Committee with the whole 
of the information which gradually came to the Tribunal 
connected with that faction. 

" Before the law of the 22nd of Prairial was passed, I was 
informed there was a project for reducing the mmiber of 
jurors to seven or nine ; I regarded that project as 
dangerous. I was at the Committee, and, in the presence 
of several members, I said that it was impolitic to reduce 
the number of jurors in a Tribunal that had hitherto enjoyed 
public confidence ; it would create a belief that the number 
was diminished because a sufficient number of subservient 
creatures could not be found. Robespierre said to me that 
it was only aristocrats who could reason thus. I have since 
been told that those remarks caused my name to be erased 
from the table of members of the Tribunal, and it would 
have been well if it had been so. I was further told that 
Robespierre had a project for causing my arrest. It appears 
that he could not attain either of his ends, for I was retained. 

" When I read the law of the 22nd of Prairial, I found it 
frightful. I did not speak of it at the Committee, because 
Robespierre was always there to close my mouth. I only 
testified my regret to some members of the Committee of 
General Security, and Citizens Amar, VouUand and Vadier 
told me that they were engaged in getting some of its articles 
reformed. Robespierre's despotism rendered it impossible 
to execute this project, for he extorted all the decrees he 
wished. 

" At Danton's trial I wrote to the Committee to know 



AN INTERROGATION 147 

whether I ought to grant the demand of the accused that 
the witnesses whom they summoned should be heard. 
For answer I received a decree which closed my mouth, 
and I obeyed the law. 

" After examining an affair in which Citizen Gajrvernon, 
a brother of the Deputy, and an adjutant called Barthelemy 
were implicated, I saw that there was nothing against 
them, and proposed to ask that they should be set free. 
Robespierre said to me : ' / have learned that you have a 
project for liberating those two individuals. I order you in 
the name of the Committee to bring forward the documents' I 
answered him that it was for the Tribunal to inquire into 
the matter, and to pronounce their liberation, if there was 
ground for it. Citizen Ga5rvernon came and asked me why 
I did not cause his brother, who was not guilty, to be set 
free. I answered that my hands were tied, that he could 
inform the Convention of the fact, and that I would support 
him. This was also at the Committee, for I never saw him 
in private, either at his house or elsewhere. 

" He wished to know the names of the Deputies who had 
given evidence for Kellerman's defence. I said that I did 
not remember them. He insisted and asked me : ' Was it 
not Dubois Crance and Gauthier ? ' I excused myself, 
alleging my defective memory. He asked me the same 
thing about General Hoche. It was always in the name of 
the Committee that he spoke to me. If I had followed 
the orders that he gave me, the trial of those citizens would 
have ended long ago. 

" It has been said that I furnished Robespierre with lists 
of the persons who were to be tried. I should have been 
very guilty if I had done so, and I declare that I have had 
nothing to do with it. But Robespierre had spies and 
agents in the Tribunal, and President Dumas was his 
accomplice. 

" He made the Committee of Public Safety pass a resolu- 
tion, which is still in my drawer, and of which I was given 
notice lest I should forget it. This resolution ordered 
that I should be bound to furnish to the Committee each 



148 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

decade^ a statement of the persons who were to be placed 
on trial during the following decade. Every evening, in 
order to conform to another resolution of which I was also 
given notice, I furnished the list of persons who had been 
condemned or acquitted during the day, and it was then 
that Robespierre indulged in angry observations to the 
bearer of that Hst. 

" Never have I had any secret conference with Robespierre. 
Never have I received any order from him when alone. 
Citizen Merlin (of Thionville) can also tell you that, at a 
meal where Citizen Lecointre was also present, I spoke of 
Robespierre in a manner far from flattering. That caused 
me to be denounced to Robespierre's secret cabal as conspir- 
ing with the Deputies against him. I have never had any 
communication with him. I groaned under his despotism. 
I acted only in accordance with the laws and the decrees. 
I would not have taken a step beyond them." 

Merlin (of Thionville) : "I demand that Fouquier 
explain his conduct in regard to the conspiracy of the 
foreigner and that of the Luxembourg." 

Breard^ : "I demand that he explain his conduct in 
regard to Catherine Theot." 

Several voices : "No discussion." 

Tallien : " The Convention ought not to subject Fouquier 
to a cross-examination. He has asked to be heard on very 
important matters, and, up to the present, I have heard 
nothing worth listening to. Robespierre's conspiracy con- 
tained an infinite number of threads which are still hidden, 
and which will soon be disclosed. But it is not for the 
Convention to question Fouquier on particular facts. If 
he has declarations to make for the safety of the country, 
let him make them spontaneously. A man such as he, who 
has been initiated into the mysteries of iniquity, ought to 
have valuable information. I also could bring facts against 
him. But it is useless to accuse him, since, for a long time, 

^ Cf. note p. 66. 

* Jean-Jacques, Deputy for the Charente-Inferieure, had spoken 
against Robespierre, and, on the 3rd of Thermidor, had opposed the 
printing of his speech. 



DUMAS' MONSTROUS DEMAND 149 

France has been accusing him. I demand that he be not 
cross-examined at the bar." 

Merlin " I demand that he be heard." 

Fouquier-Tinville : "I am going to relate the facts as 
they occurred. It was Lanne, Robespierre's agent, who was 
sent to the Luxembourg to discover if there were a conspiracy 
there. It was upon his report that I received from the 
Committee the list of persons inplicated in that conspiracy. 

" Dumas wanted 160 prisoners to be put on trial at once. 
He said that the Committee had ordered it. I did not 
believe him, and wrote to the Committee. I learned that 
my letter had been opened by Robespierre, who did not 
want to make any reply, I was at the Committee that 
evening. I found it assembled, and remember that I saw 
there Citizens CoUot, Billaud, Saint-Just, Robespierre, and 
another of whose name I am not certain, but whom I believe 
to be Citizen Carnot. And it was decided that the 160 
persons would be put on trial in three lots. 

" As for Catherine Theot, I received an order to bring 
the documents to the Committee in accordance with the 
resolution ordering her trial. I went there. In the first 
room I found Dumas, to whom Robespierre had doubtless 
given instructions. The Committee were assembled. I 
placed the documents on the desk, Robespierre took 
possession of them. And when he began to read them, 
every one went out, so that I was left alone with him and 
Dumas. He ordered me to leave the bundle. I obeyed and 
reported the matter to the Committee of General Security, 
which was especially entrusted with the supervision of 
the Tribunal." 

After this declaration, Fouquier was, by order of the Presi- 
dent, taken back to the Conciergerie. Merlin (of Douai) 
submitted for discussion a project for a decree on the 
organisation of the new Revolutionary Tribunal. At three 
o'clock the session was adjourned.^ 

On the 12th of Fructidor (August 29), the ex-Public 
Prosecutor's case was before the Convention. Lecointre 
* Moniteur, session of the 21st of Thermidor. 



150 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

(of Versailles) had, on that day, undertaken to attack seven 
of his colleagues and to prove that Billaud-Varenne, Collot 
d'Herbois, and Barere, members of the Committee of Public 
Safety, and Vadier, Amar, VouUand, and David, members 
of the Committee of General Security, were guilty of and 
responsible for the crimes of the Terror, and for the excesses 
committed by the Revolutionary Tribunal. Before the 
Assembly, at first astonished and then hostile, he had read 
twenty-six charges which he had formulated. These 
complaints seemed to be based on certain articles in 
Fouquier's memorials for his defence. 

A Deputy, Goujon, exclaimed : " What credit does 
Fouquier-Tinville deserve, that man whose interest it is 
to plunge a sword into the bosom of the Convention in order 
to save himself ? " 

Billaud, " the rectilinear patriot," raging at Lecointre's 
accusation, asked : " Who does not see that this is an 
infernal intrigue contrived by Fouquier-Tinville to divert 
upon us all the odium of his conduct ? " 

This session of the 12th and that of the 13th ended in 
the confusion of Lecointre, who could not prove his charges, 
and whose speech was continually interrupted by the cry : 
" Proofs ! Proofs ! " whilst he could not furnish any serious 
evidence. When he ceased reading, there was, in the 
Assembly, an outburst of murmurs, invectives, and hootings. 

There were shouts of, " Send him to the Petites Maisons ! " 

It must be admitted that he had no evidence. Fouquier- 
Tinville' s Memorials alone had furnished him with argu- 
ments.^ Elie Lacoste demanded that a warrant be issued 
for Lecointre's arrest, and Cambon concluded thus : 

" To-day when everything is made clear, when no evi- 
dence worthy of credit has been presented to you, and when 
you are convinced of the falseness of the accusation brought 
against several members of theiNational Convention, you ought , 
by a solemn resolution, to declare that it is a calumny." 

* Lecointre, to whom Fouquier had not sent his Memorials, could 
have become acquainted with them through their having been com- 
municated to him by Meriin (of Douai), Moyse Bayle, or Louis (of 
the Bas-Rhin). 



IN PRISON 151 

This crushing proposition was voted unanimously in the 
midst of the most eager applause. A bad omen for Fouquier ! 

In the course of these debates, Billaud-Varenne and 
Legendre had made two mistakes, the one in affirming 
that, to reward Fouquier for the documents he had furnished, 
he had been transferred to Sainte-Pelagie, without an order 
from the Committees ; the other in stating that the precaution 
had been taken of placing him in solitary confinement there. 

Now, Fouquier had been transferred by an order of the 
Committee of General Security, as we have seen. He was 
not in solitary confinement, since, on the 14th of Fructidor, 
he wrote the following letter to Moyse Bayle and to Louis 
(of the Bas-Rhin) " from the depths of the prison into which 
he ought never to have been thrown " : 

" Not reading any newspapers, for they are not brought 
into the houses of detention for some not very obvious 
reason, I have just been informed that Citizen Lecointre, 
at the session of the 12th, has formulated twenty-seven 
[sic) charges against several Deputies, in particular Citizens 
Amar, Vadier, and VouUand : ist, that Amar and Voulland 
had said to the Public Prosecutor when handing over 
to him the decree concerning the affair of Danton and the 
others : ' You ought to be easy now. This is something 
to bring them to reason,' and Amar, Voulland, and Vadier, 
when there was a rumour in the Tribunal that the majority 
of the jurors were voting for the innocence of the prisoners, 
had passed through the refreshment-room and had induced 
President Herman to employ all possible means to get a 
sentence of death passed and that this was done by Herman, 
who spoke against the accused, and who urged the jurors 
who had voted for death to threaten the others with the 
vengeance of the Committees, and that these two charges 
were signed by me. 

" I am ignorant whether those facts have been set forth 
at the Convention by Citizen Lecointre. But what is 
certain is that it is impossible to have based those two 
charges on my memorial or on any writing that has emanated 
from me. For, were I to perish a thousand times, independ- 



152 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

ently of the improbability of those two charges, they are 
absolutely strange to me, and have not been communicated 
by me either verbally or in writing to Citizen Lecointre. I do not 
even remember that Citizens Amar and VouUand handed 
me the decree in question. As for Citizen Vadier, I only 
knew long afterwards that he came to the Tribunal. He 
did not come into my office, nor did I see him at the hearing 
of the case. 

" Yet, by an error of journalists or others, here am I 
brought before the public as an informer against Deputies 
whose testimony I invoke in my memorials to justify myself. 
Is there a sadder or more unfortunate position than mine, 
after having spent days and nights in the public interest ? 

" I cannot explain my conduct in regard to accusations that 
have reached me only in a very imperfect form. Perhaps if 
the Committee would inform me of the charges, I might have 
another answer to make to them. But it would be necessary 
for me to be heard. I shall never depart from the truth, 
even were I to suffer what I do not deserve. I therefore 
expect everything from its justice." 

The publicity given a little later to the crimes of Joseph 
Lebon at Arras, and of Carrier at Nantes, must have warned 
Fouquier that his hour was near, and that his turn to be tried 
was coming. On the 28th of Fructidor, he wrote to Claude- 
Emmanuel Dobsen, a former judge of the Tribunal of the 
Terror,^ and now the President of the new Revolutionary 
Tribunal : 

" To Citizen Dobsen, President of the Revolutionary 
Tribunal. At the Palace of Justice. 

" Pelagie, this 28th of Fructidor of the second year of the 
Republic, one and indivisible. 

" Citizen President, 

" Informed that I am to be brought to trial on one 
of the sans culottides,^ I have not too much time to collect 
all the documents necessary for my defence, the greater 

1 Dobsen had been cashiered on the 22nd of Prairial. 

2 Complementary days in the RepubUcan Calendar. — Tr. 



AN INSTANCE OF HUMANITY 153 

part of which are in the hands of the Deputies who have 
proceeded to the examination of the papers at the Popular 
Commission. As all the documents can only be collected by 
the defender whom I shall choose, I inform you that yesterday 
I invited Citizen Lafleutrie to the Tribunal to undertake 
my defence, which he has promised to do. 

" But it is necessary for him to have permission to consult 
with me. I request you to give him this permission, unless 
indeed you consider that the cross-examination should take 
place first ; in that case I pray you to let it take place at 
Pelagie, as was the case with the men of Nantes and others 
who were here, if you do not judge it suitable to transfer me 
to the Conciergerie there to await the day of my trial. I 
have received none of the papers that it had been agreed 
should be given me in order that I might know of what I am 
accused. ^i k ^ t- .> , 

A. Q. FOUQUIER. 1 

On that 28th of Fructidor, the ninety-four inhabitants of 
Nantes had just been acquitted by the Tribunal after a 
hearing lasting seven days. They had waited ten months 
for their trial. ^ 

When Fouquier-Tinville heard of the verdict in his prison, 
he must have congratulated himself on it. It was through 
him that the piteous victims of Carrier, of Chaux, and of 
Gouillin, were still alive. When Public Prosecutor, he had 
protracted their trial, not wishing to plead against them, 
considering that the evidence sent to his office by the 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 500, 2nd dossier, p. 39. 

' They were charged with " federalism, conspiracy against the 
Repubhc, having communication with the rebels in La Vendee, and 
monopolising merchandise." They left Nantes on the 7th of 
Frimaire in the year II. (November 27, 1793), to the number of 132, 
escorted by a detachment of the nth Paris battalion. Their journey 
from Nantes lasted forty days. Thirty-five of them perished or 
had to remain on the road. Three died in prison at Paris. During 
the journey they had suffered terribly, led from cell to cell, from 
empty church to empty church, from stable to stable, sleeping on 
innumerable pallets of rotten straw, eaten by vermin, worn out with 
fatigue, and unable to take off their clothes (Archives Nationales 
W. 449, dossier 105). 



154 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

Revolutionary Committee of Nantes was insufficient. Five 
times he had written to that Committee to demand proofs 
and official documents. The answer to his last letter only 
reached him on the 5 th of Thermidor, nine days before his 
arrest, four days before Robespierre's fall. 

It is true that, on that 5th of Thermidor, the order had 
been given to transfer the ninety-four inhabitants of Nantes 
in a body to the Plessis prison, a gaol of sinister reputation 
which the populace called " Fouquier's store-house." Dur- 
ing the blood-stained opening of Thermidor, the Revolu- 
tionary axe struck with such fury that it may be asked what 
would have happened to these men of Nantes if Robespierre, 
Dumas, and Coffinhal had not succumbed. When we re- 
flect on the 342 sentences of death that were passed at 
Paris between the ist and the 9th of Thermidor ; when we 
know how, during those nine days, the prisons of Carmes, of 
Bic^tre, of Saint-Lazare were emptied by the guillotine's 
agency, it is permissible to ask whether the inhabitants of 
Nantes who were detained at the Plessis would not have 
ended by being also placed on trial and executed as were so 
many others. 

But the 9th of Thermidor came. They still lived. They 
were saved, and without any doubt they owed their Hves 
to Fouquier-Tinville, who, in this affair, had known how 
to show himself just and humane. Humane, because, 
knowing that since their arrival in Paris the men of Nantes 
had been attacked by a sort of epidemic disease of which 
several of them died, he had caused them to be distributed 
among three hospitals, that of Petit-Bercy, the Hospice de 
la Folie-Regnault in the Rue des Amandiers-Popincourt, 
and Doctor Belhomme's house. No. 70, Rue de Charonne. 
Just, because he had withstood the monstrous demands of 
the Revolutionary Committee of Nantes ; had refused, 
on the authority of simple notes and without any evidence or 
official documents, to treat these wretches as " brigands of 
La Vendee " or as " the head-quarters staff of the Catholic 
army," as a section of public opinion at Paris called them. 

Ready to appear before his j udges, the ex-Public Prosecutor, 



THE MEN OF NANTES 155 

learning that the men of Nantes had been acquitted, could 
congratulate himself thereon. He could remember this 
verdict, and be able, justly, to confront his accusers 
with this fact : " Ninety-four French citizens owe their 
lives to me." 



CHAPTER VII 

fouquier-tinville's first trial, the inquiry 
(vendemiaire and brumaire of the year ii.) 

THE year II. was ending. For Fouquier-Tinville 
bad news followed on bad news. In his own mind, 
it was evident that his trial would be that of one 
of the patriots who had occupied " a place in the 
Revolution." This harsh and sombre man suffered in his 
affections as a husband and a father. He meditated ; 
he reflected and told himself that his family would die of 
starvation. 

" Citizen President," he wrote on the 25th of Thermidor 
to the President of the National Convention, " allow the 
unhappy father of a numerous family to remind the Con- 
vention that the rigorous exercise of the functions of Public 
Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal of the Republic 
has given him as enemies all the enemies of the RepubUc ; 
yet, in everything, he has exactly executed the decrees of 
the Convention and the resolutions of the Committees of 
Public Safety and of General Security. Firm in his innocence, 
he dares to claim from the Convention the justice that it 
alone can render him. 

"A. Q. FOUQUIER." 1 

He corresponded with his wife through the agency 
of their faithful servant, Citizeness Fouquier-Tinville 
sent her husband, food, linen, and the books he required. 
His letters, which are very interesting, have been preserved, 
but they are not dated. The earlier ones were written from 
the Conciergerie when the ex-Public Prosecutor was drawing 
up his long memorials for his defence. The others date from 
* Archives Nationales, P 4436, liasse T., p. g. 
156 



FOUQUIER'S LETTERS TO HIS WIFE 157 

after his incarceration in Saint-Pelagie. Some of these letters 
have been copied at the Historical Library of the City of 
Paris.^ 

First Letter 

" I ask you again, ma bonne amie, to hurry on the 
printing of my memorials, to correct them as you have 
seen me do, and, above all, to distribute none to anybody 
unless I tell you ; you ought to guess the reason. I am 
engaged in making out a Hst of those among whom I think 
they ought to be circulated ; I rely enough on your regard 
to have no doubt that you are fulfilling my intentions on 
this point. 

" You remark to me that Citizen Assehn told you that 
he thought my eldest brother would come for my trial ; I 
wish he would, but what can he do, except spare you some 
journeys ? for you must be very tired. My innocence gives 
me some tranquillity, but the prospect does not console me, 
especially as I am always abandoned to myself. I give myself 
up to a crowd of reflections, each more sinister than the 
other. Who would have thought that by doing my duty 
as I have done, I should be reduced to this sad position 
on account of monsters with whom I have never rubbed 
shoulders ? Time is a great teacher, I know ; so it is on 
that alone I count. 

" Again, no memorial to anybody, not even to Viefville 
nor to anybody else ; but you can send some through Assehn 
to my brothers, advising them to keep none of them, and 

1 It was from reading the second series of M. Lenotre's Vielles 
Maisons, Vieux Papiers, published in 1907 (the article on Madame 
Fouquier-Tinville), that we learned of the existence of Notes et 
Documents sur Fouquier-Tinville , published by M. George Lecocq. 
At that period we had copied out the manuscript letters reproduced 
here, which are preserved in the Historical Library of the City of 
Paris. " When Madame Fouquier-Tinville died in want and hunger 
in Paris," says M. Lecocq, " when the family had refused her estate, 
the State caused everything that composed the fortune of that 
unhappy woman to be sold. All the furniture, including the manu- 
scripts referred to, was knocked down for some hundreds of francs. 
A celebrated amateur, M. Walferdein, bought the autographs and 
some precious documents for his collection." 



158 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

not to give them to anybody to read. We must wait some 
days before we distribute them. As for the last, let them 
not be sent to anybody until a decision is come to ; of 
course your aunt can read it at home. Impress on the printer 
that he must not give any away ; I am more afraid of that 
than of anything else. 

" Try and go to the Jacobin Club this evening and send 
me the result to-morrow with other news. 

" No distribution of copies to the Tribunal either at 
present. 

" I again embrace you, keep acquainted with the news of 
the day. 

" Did you receive the ninety copies I sent you this 
morning ? You tell me nothing about them. I will make 
out a list of the persons to whom they should be given. 

" P.S. — Yes, I should like some eggs." 

Second Letter 

" Good-morning, ma bonne amie, you were not expecting 
news from me so early ; you have doubtless inserted in 
my memorial the various additions I sent you, especially 
that ending with the words, ' the great conspirators, ex- 
nobles mid priests.' 

' ' I should like you to add after the words, ' ex-nobles and 
priests,' the following : ' from actual circumstances, there 
can remain no doubt as to the true motives of the author of 
the declamation and denunciation directed against me.' 

" And instead of the words, ' as without pretension in the 
art of eloquence,' it would be well to substitute, ' without 
malice as without passion.' This passage is at the end of 
the last part of my memorial. 

" Those changes are necessary ; my request ought to 
prove to you that my trial occupies my attention more than 
anything else. 

" In the course of my memorial and towards the end of 
it there is mention of the Luxembourg conspiracy, especially 
there should be this phrase, ' which was exactly executed 
on the 19th, 2ist, and 22nd of Messidor.' 



4 



MADAME FOUOUIER'S ACTIVITIES 159 

" I should like, in the margin by that phrase and in the 
form of further information, these words to be placed, ' there 
ought to be among the Archives of the Popular Commission 
sitting at the Louvre a letter I wrote to it on the night between 
the i8th and the 19th, in which I inform it that in accord- 
ance with the decision of the Committee of Public Safety, 
the matter of the Luxembourg conspiracy will be tried in 
three sessions ; I asked the Popular Commission to send me 
on the morning of the 19th the notes, documents, and infor- 
mation it may have had relating to those who are to be placed 
on trial, and whose names I sent with my letter for this 
purpose ; I have acted similarly in all other affairs.' 

" This note can be written at the foot of the page if it is 
obvious that there would not be room enough in the margin. 

" Wlien one composes a memorial in sections, it is only 
on reflection and with time that one recollects various 
important facts. 

" P.S. — If you pay the messenger give him 25 centimes and 
put it down to my account." 

Third Letter. 

" I am pleased with your letter, ma bonne amie. In the 
hope of being transferred this evening or to-morrow morning, 
I am sending you back a shirt and the two volumes of 
Prudhomme's Revolutions. Find out where is the resolu- 
tion that authorises me to amalgamate (the prisoners) ; 
I do not remember ; moreover, my affair is unfortunately 
embarrassing on this point as on everything else. Send 
to-morrow at eight o'clock in the morning. If I am trans- 
ferred, I shall take what I can with me. Be always on the 
alert, above all prepare Freron's numbers for my defence. 

" Good evening, good night, and good health." 

Fourth Letter. 

" You are right, ma bonne amie. To affix my signature 
to my memorial is the only method to adopt to avoid for- 
geries : that is very practical, for what is more necessary 
for me to do than to avoid the snares that are laid for me ? 



i6o THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

Thanks for the news you give me ; send a dozen copies of 
my memorial, and more if you can, to-morrow so that I may 
sign them, and you will distribute them only among the 
persons I tell you. I see and know nothing : the officials 
yesterday gave us reason to hope that we would soon have 
newspapers, I hope so. Continue to send me what you 
think best. You know that I am not particular about food, 
I eat because it is necessary. Send me some salt, and 
pepper, and uncork the bottle, for I have neither knife, 
scissors, nor a corkscrew. 

" I am sending you some silk stockings, two dusters, a 
shirt, a handkerchief, and a bottle. 

" I kiss you, our children, and your aunt. 

" Till to-morrow. 

" I am keeping the oil for the fricassee." 

Fifth Letter. 

" I wish, ma bonne amie, that you could send me some 
copies of my memorial with my dinner, for I have not one 
left. I have left you power to dispose of my memorial 
as you think, so act for the best. Do you know if the 
memorials you sent to the Convention have been distributed, 
do you know if they are being sold, of course, for the printer's 
profit ? I asked you for a copy of Marat's letters ; send 
with the originals those of Montanet. Brochet lives in the 
Rue Andree des Arts near the Rue de I'Eperon. I mention 
this as it is essential to keep my memorials, it is important 
not to let the stock become exhausted. I have neither 
spoon nor fork, as we are only provided with wooden spoons 
and a fork like the broken spoon that I send you. Send me 
to-morrow two spoons and a fork, for this spoon does not 
belong to me, and I must return it to the lender. 

" I am terribly wearied by my position, which I could 
endure with more patience if I had deserved it. Be always 
attentive to what is said about me, for things must come to 
an end. Good evening, good health, I kiss you, your aunt, 
and the children. 

" I have had no brandy since yesterday." 



MESSAGES AND REQUESTS i6i 

Sixth Letter. 

" I received your letter, ma honne amie, and it gives me 
all the more pleasure as it assures me that you are well ; 
I have also received my memorial ; I am going to arrange 
everything so that you can have all this afternoon. 

" Greeting, etc." 

" I kiss you, your aunt, and the children. I should like 
a bottle of brandy, for nothing keeps me up but taking a 
little." 

Seventh Letter. 

" I send you, ma honne amie, the list of witnesses who 
I think ought to be called for my defence with the facts 
that are personal to each of them ; it is important that you 
should send it to Lafieurie, after having read it and caused 
it to be read by those persons who are acquainted with what 
has taken place, and in whom you have confidence. 

" It would be to the purpose to cause some memorials 
to be given to Martin, a former juryman, Rue de Savoye, 
Section Marat. 

" I see that you are having a great deal of trouble, I wish 
I could rid you of it ; but we must submit to fate ; we 
must hope that a happier time will come. It is six o'clock. 
I have not yet been cross-examined ; it is not certain that 
I shall be to-day, and I cannot be to-morrow on account 
of the festival. Good evening, good health, more details 
to-morrow," 

Eighth Letter. 

" It is eight o'clock, ma honne amie, and I have not yet 
had any news from the Tribunal or elsewhere ; so that I 
cannot tell you if at dinner-time I shall be at Pelagie or 
elsewhere.^ If I go to the Tribunal and remain there, I 
will have you told ; if I am transferred elsewhere the maid 
at Pelagie will know the place : that is the perplexity in 

1 On the 4th of Fructidor in the year II. Fouquier had been trans- 
ferred from the Conciergerie to Saint-Pelagie. On the gth of Bru- 
maire in the year III, he was transferred from Sainte-Pelagie to the 
Plessis. 



i62 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

which I find myself ; so I am always waiting as usual. 
As to the matter of the amalgamation, I have my answer 
ready : it is a poor resource for my enemies. If you learn 
anything send me word immediately. Be always on the 
alert either in your own person or through those who still 
take any interest in me. For instance, you could send 
to the Tribunal about ten o'clock to know whether I have 
reached there, or whether they are arranging to have me 
brought there. Kind messages to Citizen de Vitry and to 
all others. Good day to everybody." 

Ninth Letter. 

" I pity you, ma bonne amie, for the fatigue you must 
have experienced during the whole day that you remained 
at the Convention without having taken anything there. 
You must indeed have suffered greatly. You are right in 
thinking that matters are going very badly. What is 
happening must remind you that I anticipated these events 
when I remarked to you at the time of the affair of the 
Revolutionary Committee that an attempt would be made 
to stir up people's minds against Carrier and afterwards 
against me. You see that this is the course taken. One 
can say that there never was a more grievous position than 
that in which I find myself. The hope of making my 
innocence triumph alone sustains me, and my sole grief 
is for you and my unhappy family. Once again I am sure 
of my innocence ; but in this state of things, what means 
are there of getting my defence listened to ? That is my 
uneasiness, lest I be sacrificed and not judged. 

" I send you in my portfolio a letter containing my feelings 
towards you, and two others which you will deliver, in time, 
if there is an opportunity. Do not grieve, they are the 
feelings engraven on my heart that I send you, and that, 
perhaps, I may not have another opportunity of conveying 
to you. Shall I, perhaps, be happier ? Shall I display 
them in person ? I hope so ; but at such a juncture we 
must expect anything. That is why I have arrived at this 
decision. Once more, do not be troubled. 



REMARKABLE LETTERS i6^. 



J 



" You must take the greatest care that my creditors do 
not seize everything from you to the last shirt, in addition 
to the property ; thus the first thing will be for you to 
disclaim community of property with me, and to take away 
as many as possible of the portable articles. The chicken 
will do me for to-day and to-morrow. 

" I kiss you with all my heart. Keep well, I kiss aunt 
and the children."^ 

These are singularly moving letters. His part played, 
the mask has fallen. He is no longer the Public Prosecutor, 
he is a man, a husband, a father. The thought that remains 
with him is that of the amazing misfortune of the beings 
for whose existence he has done his work of blood. Now he 
is hemmed in, put in a cage, like a hunted animal ; he 
belongs to the men of Thermidor. His life is in their 
hands. 

During the first days of his detention, he was preparing 
for the contest. He did everything for his defence. He 
wrote letters, drew up his Memorials at Sainte-Pelagie, 
in the midst of the prisoners, ex- jurors of the Revolutionary 
Tribunal or other officials of the Terror, such as Vilain 
d'Aubigny, Audouin, Guyard (the former janitor of Saint- 
Lazare), he spoke out, saying that he was having printed 
a memoiial against the Committees. He briefed Lecointre 
for his sensational denunciation at the Convention. ^ 

Now he had nothing more to do but wait until his fate 
was decided. And what an ordeal ! " That is my uneasiness, 
lest I be sacrificed and not judged ! " He knew that 
Carrier^ and the Revolutionary Committee of Nantes were 
to be placed on trial. His turn was coming to mount the 
benches of the Tribunal. 

1 These letters have been pubhshed by M. Lecocq {Notes et 
Documents sur Fouquiev-Tinville. Paris : Jouaust, 1885, 61 pages) 
with eight other letters of which we do not know the originals. 

» So, at least, Riston, an agent of the Committee of General Secur- 
ity, reports. 

3 Carrier's case was taken on 7th of Frirflaire. The trial lasted 
sixty sessions. Carrier, Pinard and Grandmaison were condemned 
to death on the 26th. The thirty others who were charged were 
acquitted. 



i64 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

During the preceding month, and part of Brumaire, Judge 
Forestier, assisted by his registrar, Josse, conducted a 
prolonged inquiry. He heard a great deal of evidence, almost 
all in accord, from people who were well acquainted with 
Fouquier while he exercised his terrible magistracy. Cer- 
tainly, there were some of those depositions, such as that 
of Paris, the registrar, and his subordinates, which should 
be carefully examined, for, as is known, the registry of the 
Revolutionary Tribunal was Dantonist, and it did not forgive 
the Public Prosecutor either Danton's death or the sudden 
arrest and condemnation of Legris,^ a clerk at the registry. 
And yet what precision, what clearness there were in the 
affirmations of Paris, of Wolff, of Tavernier ! 

There were, moreover, other depositions, such as that of 
Chateau, Fouquier's former secretary, which seem to bear 
all the marks of frankness and impartiality, and which, 
though favourable to the accused on many points, none the 
less established very grave charges against him on other 
points. 

The writers who have studied the history of the Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal have, to this day, chiefly made use of two 
publications which we can condemn as being often inexact 
or partial. These are : ist, Fouquier-Tinville s Printed 
Trial, published by Maret, bookseller at Paris, at the Cour 
des Fontaines, in the Palais-Egalite, and catalogued in the 
National Library under the classification Lib. 41, 1798 ; 
and 2nd, the Histoire Parlementaire of Bouchez and Roux, 
the 1837 edition. Volumes XXXIV. and XXXV., in which 
the pleadings in the trial are reproduced. 

Without systematically setting aside those two publica- 
tions, we think the time has come — since apart from all 
political ideas and preconceived notions, the reader requires 
to form an exact idea of the part that Fouquier played, and 
the responsibility he incurred — to have recourse only to the 

1 The evidence of Paris is interesting. But, when reading it, we 
ought to remember that Nicolas Joseph Paris, called Fabricius, 
Danton's friend, and appointed, thanks to Danton, chief registrar 
of the Tribunal, had been dismissed and imprisoned six days after 
Danton's execution, on the 24th of Germinal in the year II. 



DAMNING EVIDENCE 165 

original documents, that is to say to the depositions of the 
witnesses preserved in the portf ohos of the National Archives, 
and to analyse those depositions, a work that has not yet 
been done. Just as we have felt bound to reproduce in full, 
the original Memorials of Fouquier, written in his own hand, 
in view of his defence, so we think that only the original 
depositions, preserved among the Archives, ought to be 
taken into consideration. 

Let us listen to the witnesses examined by Judge Forestier. 
We shall hear Fouquier afterwards. 

At noon on the 5th of Vendemiaire in the year III. (Sep- 
tember 26th, 1794), a month and twenty days after the 
Public Prosecutor's arrest, the first witness appeared 
before Pierre Forestier, and Josse, his registrar. Nicolas 
Tirrart, 33 years of age, an usher of the Tribunal, residing 
at 281 Rue Saint-Honore, stated : 

" Since the terrible law of the 22nd of Prairial, I have 
heard Fouquier say : ' In this decade'^ there must be three 
hundred to three hundred and fifty tried.' On certain days 
when several citizens were acquitted, Fouquier would say 
with warmth : ' What ? have they acquitted those people ? 
I must have the names of the jurors.' Sometimes, when he 
returned in the evening at about ten or eleven o'clock, 
rather heated, Fouquier used to change the lists of the cases 
that had been prepared in the course of the day and of the 
accused who were to be tried the next morning. In the 
same way, when the day of the hearing came, he sometimes 
had everything changed, the cases and the accused. Some- 
times also he would call an usher and say to him : ' You 
must not summon the jurors whom I do not tell you.' 
He would then ask for the list and choose, at his own fancy, 
such a section for such a hall, although it was not the turn of 
that section to sit. It sometimes happened that he added the 
names of certain jurors who were not authorised to serve — 
Desboisseaux, Lumiere, Trinchard, Renaudin, Girard, and 
Vilate. Sometimes, in the morning, before the hearing, I 
have seen Fouquier go up to the assembled jurors in their 
* Cf. note, p. 66. 



i66 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

hall where they deliberated. I declare that Fouquier has a 
very hard, violent, and menacing character, with that tone 
that only belongs to a despot." 

The next witness, Jean Baptiste Benoit Auvray, aged 
45, an usher of the Tribunal, of No. 37, Rue de Provence, had 
heard Fouquier say several times, and in particular since 
the law of the 22nd of Prairial : "In this decade there must 
be 250, 300, to 350 prisoners tried." When the accused 
were acquitted, Fouquier would say : " What ? Give me 
the list of jurors ! What sort of jurors are these ? " He 
used to speak with incredible warmth : ' ' Can one not count 
then on these people ? " The witness had also noticed 
that sometimes when Fouquier came in, at ten or eleven 
o'clock in the evening, he was very heated, and caused the 
list of cases prepared during that day for the day following 
to be changed, as well as the list of accused persons. 

In regard to the modification of the jurors' turns, the 
depositions of the usher Auvray, were the same as those 
of the usher Tirrard. There is also agreement between both 
the depositions concerning the visits made by Fouquier 
to the jurors before the trials, 

" I should add," the witness declared, " that Fouquier is 
a very sharp, very petulant man ; that he often threatened 
the ushers and fell into frightful rages, above all, when it 
was a matter of answering him about searching for the pris- 
oners who were designated to us only by their family names. 
It was on this that he threatened me once, in a moment of 
fury, telling me that I should remember it. However, it 
is right to remark that when his anger had passed, he did 
not bear malice, and admitted that it was unfortunate for 
him to be like that, and that he knew well he could not but 
be disagreeable in the eyes of those to whom he spoke." 

Auguste- Joseph Boucher, aged 51, a clerk to the registrar of 
the Revolutionary Tribunal, residing at No. 1036 Rue Saint- 
Dominique, knew that several times, when accused persons 
had been acquitted, Fouquier said to him ill-humouredly : 
" Give me the names of those who compose the jury." An- 
other remark of Fouquier' s, made in the presence of the 



TRANSPORTS OF PASSION 167 

witness, who was then an usher, was : " You are not making 
headway, gentlemen, you are not making headway ! Hence- 
forth two hundred must pass through it every decade." 
One day, when commissioned by Fouquier to go to a prison 
to find the ex-Duchesse de Biron, he pointed out to him 
that there were two Duchesses de Biron. " Well," rephed 
Fouquier, " bring both. They will both pass through it." 
They did pass, in truth, and both mounted the scaffold 
the next day. Another day, when entrusted with a warrant 
for the arrest of a count or viscount de Castellane, the 
witness remarked to him that he desired to know which of 
the two it was for, the count or the viscount. Fouquier 
answered that he was to arrest all those who bore the name 
of Castellane.^ 

Robert Wolff, aged 38, clerk to the registrar of the Revo- 
lutionary Tribunal, residing in the Rue de Buci, declared 
that he had seen in Fouquier a very violent character, and 
a despotic, unbearable temper, " showing itself towards 
subordinate officials such as registrars, ushers, and other 
clerks." He was continually threatening to have them put 
in prison. 

"As it seldom happened that he did not take too much 
wine at dinner, it was in this state that he would come to 
the ushers' office oftener than anywhere else to vent in fury 
the vapours that during dinner had mounted to his brain. 
None the less, when fasting, he gave way equally to the 
same transports. The whole Tribunal, not even excepting 
the judges, trembled before him, some through fear of 
prison, others through the credit he had with the Com- 
mittees." 

This deposition of Robert Wolff was a regular speech for 
the prosecution, clear, precise, implacable. It was, on most 
of the important points, in full accord with the evidence we 
have just read, as well as with that which we are going to 
read. Let us not forget, however, that this deposition is 
that of a declared enemy of Fouquier-Tinville. 

"It is not true, as Fouquier advances in his printed 
1 W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 83. 



i68 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

memorial," Wolff goes on, "that he appeared against, and 
demanded the despatch to the scaffold of Mayor Lescot- 
Fleuriot, notoriously known as his most intimate friend ; 
but the fact is that he only appeared against the first seven 
or eight who were tried on the loth of Thermidor. When it 
was Fleuriot's turn, he gave place to Liendon, one of his 
deputies, who finished that hearing, which lasted until 
six o'clock in the evening, and at which twenty-two con- 
spirators were condemned to the scaffold. After Fleuriot's 
condemnation, he reappeared at the hearing, wearing a light- 
coloured coat, and remained there for part of the time that 
was spent trying the others. I performed the duties of 
registrar at that hearing. In consequence, I was a witness 
of the fact. Fouquier was so far from sending his friend 
Fleuriot to the scaffold that he violently reprimanded 
Tavernier, the usher who was present at the execution of the 
twenty-two on the loth of Thermidor, for having caused his 
dear Fleuriot to be executed the last ; he added that the 
usher had only acted thus because he had taken the opinion 
of his Section, which was also Fleuriot's Section (the Museum 
Section) . 

" On the gth of Thermidor, when Fouquier dined at the 
house of Verghnes in the He de la Fraternite, although he 
pretends that he was ignorant of the troubles, as he says 
in his memorial in order to palliate his associating with the 
infamous Coffinhal, it appears from the following fact that 
he is trying to deceive. About one o'clock on the after- 
noon of that very day. Citizen Simmonet (one of the clerks 
to the ushers of the Tribunal) came to announce that there 
was trouble in the neighbourhood and in the Faubourg Saint- 
Antoine, that the drum had beaten to arms there, and that 
Hanriot had at the point of the sword rescued the pretended 
patriots from the hands of the gendarmes. An hour before, 
Dumas had been arrested while actually sitting in the Tribu- 
nal, and at two o'clock the whole Tribunal knew of the troubles 
which Robespierre's accomplices were beginning to arouse. 
About half-past three, Fouquier, with his hat on his head, 
went out to attend that famous dinner. He was then oppo- 



FOUQUIER'S HUMANITY 169 

site the prisoners' room, a few steps from the door out of the 
Hall of Columns. Sanson, the executioner of criminal 
judgments, in the presence of Desmorest (or another 
relative who helped him to carry out the executions), of the 
usher (who was to be present at them), and of myself, re- 
marked that there was trouble in the Saint-Antoine quarter, 
through which he must pass, and in the suburb where the 
execution was to take place. He asked Fouquier whether 
he did not think it prudent to postpone the execution. 
Fouquier answered with a little emotion : ' Proceed in any 
case. Nothing ought to stop the execution of judgments nor 
the course of justice. And, moreover, there is a force to pro- 
tect the execution.' Fouquier then proceeded on his way to 
dine with his companions. It is correct to say that a 
batch of six carts was waiting only for this order to set out 
for the Barrier of the Faubourg Saint-Antoine. This was 
immediately done. 

" In regard to the humanity which Fouquier affects, and 
the bitterness he feels about the sanguinary law of the 22nd 
of Prairial, his conduct is not found to be in accord with the 
sentiments of humanity which he parades, since it is notor- 
ious that in my presence and in the presence of several others 
attached to the Tribunal, Fouquier, being at luncheon with 
several jurors, worthy executors of that law of blood, coldly 
calculated, as he picked his teeth, the number of victims 
who were to be despatched. ' Things must move,' said he. 
' There must be 400 or 450 this decade ; for the next one, so 
many are always to be had.' And the cannibal jurors, 
before whom he made such barbarous calculations, applauded. 
The fact is so notorious that there are few among those 
attached to the Tribunal who did not share those atrocious 
sentiments who are not in a position to affirm it ; more- 
over, his later conduct had only too well verified his 
calculations. It is, for the honour of humanity, only too 
notorious that he put on trial as many as seventy persons 
at once, and charged them with taking part in the alleged 
conspiracies in the prisons, especially in the first batch from 
the Luxembourg when a scaffolding was erected which 



170 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

reached to the top of the hall. Sixty-nine persons were tried 
before three o'clock, and executed the same day. That was 
in the case of the girl Renaud, her family, and Admiral. 
All the people of Paris have seen or learned from public 
conversation in what manner, in less than four hours, sixty- 
nine persons were tried and condemned to death as accom- 
plices of Renaud and Admiral. Things were hurried so 
much that, in order to avoid the time that would have been 
occupied by asking the names and descriptions of so great 
a number of persons and having them written down by the 
registrar, the judges' and the jurors' lists were made in the 
registry the evening before. This is how the proceedings 
enlightened the consciences of the jurors. An accused 
person would be asked : ' Are you acquainted with the 
conspiracy that existed, etc. ? ' The accused would answer 
in the negative. Then he was asked this other question 
which would seem to have been answered by the preceding 
one : ' Have you taken part in that conspiracy ? ' The same 
negative answer. If the accused wanted to enter into any 
details to demonstrate that he could not have taken part 
in that conspiracy, as soon as he opened his mouth the 
pitiless Dumas would say to him : ' You can be heard no 
longer. Gendarmes, do your duty.' And if the accused 
still wanted to speak, he was not allowed to take part in 
the proceedings. When the questions had been r'epeated 
sixty-nine times and the laconic answer, ' No,' had been 
returned sixty-nine times, the Prosecutor summed up for 
a quarter of an hour, the President read out the questions 
which the jury were to answer, and the legion of accused 
persons had to retire. The jurors retired as a matter of form 
to their room, where they remained for half-an-hour, then 
came back, and handed in their declarations. The PubHc 
Prosecutor made a final speech. Judgment was pronounced, 
and the registrar was sent to tell the victims that within 
half-an-hour, that is to say within the time it took to cut 
off their hair and bind their hands, they would start for the 
scaffold. This first trial is a type of those that followed it. 
And it was on that occasion that the custom began of thus 



"THINGS MUST MOVE" 171 

playing with justice, and transforming into a legal butchery 
a Tribunal which, from the very severity of its functions, 
ought to have been most scrupulously subject to forms. It 
was Fouquier who, either in person or by deputy, presided 
over the indictments and judgments. He used to say : 
' Things must move.' 

" Fouquier pretends that he only acted by order of the 
Committees. Here are two facts which prove that, if this 
is so, he must have given a very great extension to his 
orders. 

" Boucher, an usher at the Tribunal, an honest and a 
feeling man, told me, in the bitterness of his heart, that 
Fouquier having given orders to the ushers to go to a prison 
to fetch a woman named Biron who was to be put on trial 
next day and to form part of a batch. He remarked to him 
that there were two women of the name of Biron, one the 
widow of the Duke who had been condemned to death, 
and the other the widow of the Marshal.^ Fouquier said : 
' Bring them both. They will pass through it.' In fact, 
they both passed through it next day, and both were sent 
to the scaffold. 

" The same incident was repeated and also through the 
agency of the same Boucher, who told it to me. Fouquier 
gave this usher a warrant to arresta person named Castellane. 
The usher remarked to him that he knew several persons of 
the same name. ' Arrest all who bear that name,' replied 
Fouquier. Only one was arrested because no others called 
Castellane were found. 

" Finally, Fouquier said to Tavernier, a clerk in the registry 
of the Tribunal, when speaking of Fabricius, the chief 
registrar, who had been imprisoned for four months and put 
into sohtary confinement by Robespierre, and who, since 
the restoration of the Tribunal, had again been appointed 
to his old post by the National Convention, that Fabricius 
was wrong to bear him ill-will, seeing that he, Fouquier, 
had prevented Fabricius from being placed on trial and Taver- 

^ They were Amelie de BoufHers, Biron's widow, and Fran9oise 
Pauline de Roye, Marshal Biron's wife. 



172 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

nier also, and that he had prevented the witness, another 
friend of Fabricius, from being charged along with him, 
whilst there was neither accusation nor denunciation against 
Fabricius any more than against Tavernier or the witness ; 
these two last have never been arrested, and, on the con- 
trary, have always continued to perform their functions at 
the Tribunal, to which they were re-appointed on its 
restoration. 

"It is within my knowledge that for more than six 
months no registrar was ever summoned to be present 
when lots were drawn to select the judges and jurors ; 
the Public Prosecutor sent to the registry the list which 
was afterwards furnished to the ushers in order that 
they might summon them ; moreover, the ushers were 
not present at the deliberations in the Council Chamber 
and they were only provided with a memorandum of 
the proceedings so as to make out and sign the minutes ; 
several times when persons who had been acquitted presented 
themselves at the registry to obtain the documents neces- 
sary in order to get the help that was granted them by the 
law, Fouquier forbade those documents to be given without 
consulting him, because he did not wish everybody to have 
that help, although the law made no exceptions. He would 
say, in order to empower himself to prevent the dehvery of 
those documents : ' What ! these beggars are too lucky to 
be acquitted. It is incredible. What sort of jurors could 
acquit them ? Give them nothing.' " ^ 

Charles Nicolas Tavernier, aged 38, a clerk to the registrar 
of the Tribunal, residing in the Rue de la Monnaie, heard 
Fouquier say in the ushers' office : "I must get through 
with 250 to 300 accused persons in the decade." When 
any one was acquitted, Fouquier used to ask for the names 
of the jurors who were sitting. Several times he gave 
orders for certain jurors to be summoned on the pretext that 
one section was weaker than another. The indictments were 
delivered to those concerned on the day before the trial at 
seven or eight o'clock in the evening. 

^ W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 77. 



THE DANTON AFFAIR 173 

Gabriel Nicolas Monet, aged 38, an usher at the Tribunal, 
residing in the Rue du Contrat-Social in the Section of the 
same name, declared that Fouquier selected the jurors who 
were to be summoned. Those whom he chose oftenest were 
Renaudin, Nicolas, Desboisseaux, Lumiere, Vilate, and 
Gravier. This choice only began after the operation of the 
law of the 22nd of Prairial. 

Monet heard Fouquier say : " Next decade there must be 
300 or 350 tried. Things are not moving. We must act 
in revolutionary fashion." 

Citizeness Goureau, aged 36, of No. 18, Faubourg Saint- 
Martin, and her sister-in-law, nee Alexandre Rosalie Pigeon, 
having been commissioned to bring to the Tribunal a letter 
to Fouquier-Tinville from Bourdon (of the Oise), saw three 
jurors entering the Council Chamber where Fouquier was. 
" Now we are free ! " said they. Fouquier asked them if the 
prisoners had been tried. " Yes," answered the three 
jurors. " We do not know of what they were accused. 
To know that, you have only to run after them." At this 
remark Fouquier burst into laughter. 

Jean Baptiste Topino-Lebrun, aged jji, bom at Marseilles, 
a juror of the Revolutionary Tribunal, residing in the Louvre, 
had always regarded as a problem Fouquier' s activity in his 
duties combined with the negligence with which he fol- 
lowed up " the business of the great conspiracies, either to 
reach their real heads or to extirpate their roots." To take 
an instance. " In the project for rescuing the Queen from 
the Conciergerie, and afterwards when she was led to execu- 
tion, the police administration, influenced by Hebert and 
Chaumette, ought to have been differently examined [sic)." 
There was the same negligence in the Ronsin affair and in 
that of Westermann " who was placed on trial for having 
violated all the forms relative to La Vendee." 

" Fouquier did not seem to me to be without party 
spirit in the Danton affair. If he did not write to the Com- 
mittee of PubUc Safety about the alleged rebeUion of the 
accused persons, why, when he demanded the reading of the 
law which took away their right to plead, did he begin by 



174 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

saying : ' On account of the rebellion of the accused per- 
sons ' ? Why, on the fourth day, did he and Herman go 
to the jurors' room to induce them to declare that they were 
sufficiently informed ? After that trial, did he, at the very 
least, act on these words of Danton, so important to our 
liberty : ' I demand commissioners from the Convention 
in order that they may receive my denunciation of the sys- 
tem of dictatorship ' ? It was the Convention that 
should have been writen to and not the Committee of 
Public Safety. 

" It was Fouquier who caused the red shirts to be put on 
the 52 prisoners in the affair of Admiral and the girl Renaud. 
They were by no means accused of assassination. 

" The writs of indictment seemed to me to strain and 
exaggerate the charges which could be made against 
prisoners. Sometimes terrible facts were in no way borne 
out at the trial by the documents or by the statements 
of the witnesses."^ 

Jean Baptiste Sambat, aged 35, a juror of the Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal, residing at No. 36 Rue Taitbout, had 
no acquaintance with the facts alleged against the prisoner 
Fouquier. However, he noticed, a little before the period 
of the law of Prairial, that grave accusations were often 
found to be void through the lack of documents and 
witnesses. 2 

Jean Nicolas Thierriet-Grandpre, aged 41, chief clerk 
of the Commission for the Administration of Civil Affairs, 
PoUce, and Tribunals, residing at No. 38, Rue de Thion- 
ville, declared that on the day following that on which 
Freteau was acquitted, he went to Fouquier to consider with 
him what measures were to be taken for the security of the 
Hospice de I'Eveche. Fouquier said to him : " You do not 
know that yesterday they acquitted Freteau at the Tribunal, 
though the man is known to me as having been a royalist 
and a definite counter-revolutionary under the Constituent 
Assembly. But I swear that before long he will be taken 
again and then he will not escape." 

1 W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 145. * Ibid. 



i 



CURIOUS METHODS 175 

Another day Fouquier told him with " a mixture of 
pleasure and irony " how he had received in his office an 
individual who came to give him information about some 
case. For several hours Fouquier had "wheedled" him, 
then had suddenly handed him over to the Tribunal, " which 
condemned him in a quarter of an hour," 

Louis Charles Hally, aged 42, janitor of the house of deten- 
tion of Plessis-Egalite, only became acquainted with the 
famous conspiracy in the prisons through the report of 
Viart and Courlet-Beaulop, He immediately communicated 
this report to Fouquier, who said to him : " I shall put them 
on trial to-morrow or the day after, and I shall summon 
you as a witness." He asked for time to inform himself 
about the matter. Fouquier refused it. On the following 
day the prisoners were placed on trial. Hally, summoned as 
a witness, could not make a declaration as he did not know a 
single fact about the case, which was adjourned. Fouquier 
reprimanded him, and showed ill-humour towards him 
" because the business could not be ended as he wished."^ 

Louis Pierre Dufourny, aged 55, an architect in the House 
of Explosives at the Arsenal in Paris, 2 in a very long, pre- 
tentious, circumstantial, and rather obscure deposition, in 
which it appears that he liked pushing himself forward and 
distributing praise and blame to the Thermidor conquerors — 
Dufourny charged Fouquier with having been secretly favour- 
able to Ronsin, " Robespierre's man, and with having con- 
tributed to suppress the clues that might have made known 
the causes of La Vendee, the methods employed to keep that 
ulcer open, and the participation in it of Robespierre and of 
Ronsin as well as their actual accompUces." 

Summoned as a witness at Danton's trial, Dufourny said 
that he was systematically set aside. In vain did he write 
about the matter to Fouquier. He was kept in the witnesses' 
room for the three days that the proceedings lasted. He 
there observed aU that was taking place around him. He 

1 W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 61. 

* Dufourny succeeded Lavoisier as Director of Explosives at the 
Arsenal. 



176 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

saw several members of the Committee of General Security 
" sitting at the Tribunal," among others, David, Amar, 
Voulland and Vadier. " They were unrecognisable from 
anger, pallor, and fright, so much did they seem to fear that 
they would see the victims escape death." They kept com- 
ing in and going out, and were agitated by an activity which 
displayed all their passions. They communicated with 
Fouquier in his olhce as well as in the passages and even in 
the entrance to the witnesses' room."^ 

Jean Pierre Victor Feral, aged 39, judge of the district of 
Pont-Chalier,2 residing in Paris at No. 3, Rue de la Femme- 
sans-T^te declared that, being present at the last session of 
Hebert's trial and finding himself in the Council Chamber, 
he heard Fouquier propose to the judges and some jurors to 
have Lieutenant-Colonel Quetineau's widow and a man called 
Armand^ withdrawn from the proceedings "seeing that 
there were no proofs against them, and to send them back 
to the house of detention because proofs might be found in 
other cases." He added that he was going to make this pro- 
posal to the Tribunal when the session opened. Several 
judges and jurors opposed this initiative of Fouquier. The 
witness believed that, disarmed by this opposition, Fouquier 
remained silent at the session.* 

1 W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 41. 

* Pont-l'Eveque, Calvados. 

» Jean Antoine Florent Armand, a medical student, implicated 
in Hebert's trial and condemned to death, on the 4th of Germinal 
in the year II. 

* W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 85. 



CHAPTER VIII 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE'S first trial : CONTINUATION AND 
END OF THE INQUIRY. (VENDEMIAIRE AND BRUMAIRE 
OF THE YEAR III.) 

JEAN BAPTISTE TA VERNIER, registrar's clerk of 
the Revolutionary Tribunal, was commissioned to pay 
50 livres to the prisoners each decade. He received 
their claims, and presented them to Fouquier. A 
great number of them " overwhelmed him with claims in 
regard to sums deposited with the Public Prosecutor 
instead of being placed in the registry." 

Tavernier related these facts to Judge Forestier at his 
examination on the 12th of Vendemiaire in the year III., 
and he gave details. A prisoner claimed " his decades out 
of about 1,800 livres in paper-money, 1,392 livres in gold." 
Another claimed them out of 2,282 livres. On a certain day 
when Tavernier " presented to Fouquier their just claims 
and pointed out to him that he lacked everything," the 
Public Prosecutor answered him sharply (" for," said the 
witness, " he is violent ") : " Give me the list of these beggars. 
I will make them pass through it to-morrow." 

Tavernier knew what that meant. He pointed out to 
the complainants the extreme danger of their demands. 
They became silent. It was only after Fouquier's arrest 
that the deposits of certain prisoners " who had not yet been 
guillotined" were sent to the registry. 

Tavernier remembered the calculations made by Fouquier 
to cause a certain number of heads to fall each decade. 
One day he heard him say : " Last decade furnished so 
many ; this one the number must go to 450 or even 500. 
Come ! Call an usher ! " The usher came. " Come, you 
fellows," said Fouquier, " things must move. Last decade 
things did not turn out badly. But this decade they must 
reach 450 at least." 

M 177 



178 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

Since Fouquier's arrest the witness had met him at the 
Conciergerie. Fouquier approached him and said to him ; 

" Are you a friend of Fabricius ? " 

" Yes, you know it." 

" I am told that he has a grudge against me." 

" I know nothing about it." 

" He could do me a great service. He knows Barras, 
Freron, and other Deputies. He could serve me with them. 
He is wrong to have a grudge against me. For it was I 
who caused the postponement of his trial. It was even 
intended to join you with him, as well as Wolff." 

The witness ended by saying that his astonishment was 
so great that he withdrew without any further explanation. 

Louis Frangois Ferriere-Sauveboeuf, aged 32, living on 
his private income and detained at La Force, declared that 
on the 28th of Prairial he was summoned at one o'clock in 
the morning before the Committee of General Security. 
Fouquier-Tinville came there, about two o'clock, to complain 
of having been ill-treated in a guard-room. He heard Fou- 
quier-Tinville say, in the presence of the assembled Com- 
mittee " which contradicted him in no way " : " I have thirty- 
nine of them to-day who went to the Barrier du Trone 
Renverse for the Bicetre plots. To-morrow I shaU send 
sixty of them." And the witness heard cries of " Bravo ! " 

He also heard it said to Deschamps, the registrar's secre- 
tary of Bicetre, that Fouquier-Tinville came with gendarmes 
to fetch the second batch from Bicetre, and that he refused 
to listen to Osselin^ who was commenting on this 
transference.^ 

* Charles Nicolas Osselin, a member of the Convention, had voted 
for Louis XVI. 's death. He was a member of the Committee of General 
Security and President of the Tribunal which was established on 
August 17. He proposed the law against the. emigrants. Informed 
against for having gone security for an emigrant, Charlotte de 
Luppe, Countesse de Charry, he was put on trial, condemned to be 
deported, and transferred to Bicetre, where he was implicated in the 
conspiracy in the prisons. He was brought before the Tribunal, 
condemned to death, and executed on June 26, 1794. He had tried 
to commit suicide by stabbing himself in the breast with a nail. 

» W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 72. 



AN UNUSUAL HUMANITY 179 

In a second deposition, three days later, Ferriere-Sauve- 
boeuf repeated the words of Joly, an usher at the Criminal 
Tribunal of the Department. On the 8th of Thermidor, 
this usher met Fouquier, who said to him : " Your Tribunal 
is not keeping up. It only makes two or three mount (the 
scaffold), and I, / shall make fifty mount it the day after next 
decade begins," 

Ferriere-Sauvebceuf observed that when he was at the 
Committee of General Security he heard Fouquier say : 
" I have made thirty-nine of them mount (the scaffold) 
to-day, and to-morrow / will make sixty of them mount it." 
Fouquier could not carry out his intention for, having 
been beaten in a police-station, he was ill on that day. 
The next day " was that of the ' batch ' of people from 
Bicetre, and the 29th of Prairial was that of the sixty which 
he had predicted."^ 

The following deposition is in part favourable to Fouquier : 
Urbain Didier Chateau, Fouquier's ex-secretary, afterwards 
an usher in the Revolutionary Tribunal, aged 34, noticed, 
when he was the Public Prosecutor's secretary, that almost 
all the letters he wrote to the Committee of General Security 
bore the address of Vadier only. 

He knew also that several citizens came, on several 
occasions, to ask Fouquier to bring about the trials of their 
children who had been prisoners for a long time, saying that 
if they were guilty their heads ought to fall, but if innocent 
they ought to be given back to the service of the country. 
Fouquier, reminding them of the causes of their children's 
imprisonment, remarked that " he did not wish to cause 
defenders of the country who were only guilty of foolish 
actions to be put to death ; that if he put them on trial 
it would ruin them, and that he preferred to leave them 
longer in prison in the hope that when the great operations 
were ended there would come a gentler law which would 
set them free." 

Chateau also knew that Fouquier several times said : 
"It is a tyranny and a very great annoyance that the 
* W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 79 



i8o THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

inhabitants of Nantes should be brought before this Tribunal 
without any evidence against them." 

Since he became an usher at the Tribunal, Chateau, 
being one day in the Council Chamber, heard Fouquier 
and Dumas say to five or six jurors that it was astonishing 
they had not convicted an accused ex-noble (whose name 
he had forgotten). According to them, he was a man who 
ought not to escape the punishment of death ; but they held 
him, and they would know how to take him again without 
it being possible for him to escape. 

At the beginning of Thermidor, Chateau heard Fouquier 
say to two jurors, as he was leaving the session in the Hall of 
Liberty, with papers under his arm, and was at the bottom 
of the staircase that led to his room : " It is astonishing 
that you have condemned that prisoner. I hope he will 
be set free." 

At the same period there had been a number of persons 
tried, among whom were three who had been acquitted, 
and who ought to have been set at liberty twenty-four hours 
after the verdict. Chateau went to find Fouquier the next 
day, at eleven o'clock in the evening, at the refreshment- 
room of the Tribunal. He asked him for an order to set 
these three persons free. Fouquier read the three names, 
said that among them there was an ex-noble who had been 
badly tried, and that he would see about getting hold of 
him again. For this reason it was necessary to leave them 
in prison until there was a fresh order.^ 

Armand Benoit Joseph Guffroy, Deputy for the Pas-de- 
Calais at the Convention, residing at No. 35 Rue Saint- 
Honore, was not well acquainted with Fouquier-Tinville. 
He had heard, either in the offices of the Committee of 
General Security, or from the members of the Convention, 
that at the beginning or at the end of each decade, when 
Fouquier brought long lists of prisoners to the prosecutor's 
office, he used to say in a gay tone, rubbing his hands : 
"Ah! we shall unbreech (deculotterons) a good quantity 
of them this decade." 

^ W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 74. 




CHARLOTTE CORDAY 



A SYSTEM OF DESPOTISM i8i 

He also heard his colleague, Lecointre, say that, when 
Fouquier v/as dining with him, some one (perhaps Lecointre 
himself) said to Fouquier: " How is it possible that you, 
who were at first believed to be a just man, can lend yourself 
to committing or helping to commit so many cruelties ? " 

Fouquier answered : " When one has one foot in crime, 
it is necessary to plunge right in," 

The witness several times saw Fouquier coming to the 
Committee of General Security and asking for papers relating 
to various prisoners. He would then have secret conferences 
with Vadier, Amar, and some others of whose names he 
could not be certain.^ 

Next came Jacques Bernard Marie Montane, the former 
President of the Revolutionary Tribunal, aged 43.2 He 
declared that at the period of the creation of the Revolution- 
ary Tribunal he had been appointed President, not on the 
nomination of a Committee, but by the Convention itself, 
by a majority of votes given in secret ballot. It was at the 
time of the installation of the Tribunal that he saw Fouquier 
for the first time. For two months he lived on fairly good 
terms with him. He had then no suspicion of him. It was 
otherwise during the following two months, when these tv/o 
magistrates were at open war " either on account of the 
absolute despotism which Fouquier-Tinville publicly exer- 
cised over the whole Tribunal or on account of the criminal 
operations with which Montane publicly reproached him, 
or on account of the generals, the commissioners for war, 
the ex-nobles, the ex-captains of cavalry, the ex-marquises, 
whom he exempted from the sword of the law, clandestinely 

^ W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 65. 

^ Fouquier had denounced him for having erased from the sen- 
tence on Leonard Bourdon's assailants the clause confiscating their 
goods, and for having at Charlotte Corday's trial modified the ques- 
tions propounded to the jury, giving them a sense which made her 
case one that could be tried by a common-law tribunal. In his de- 
nunciation, Fouquier had asked that the President " should not be 
delivered over to the rigours of justice." When Montane was 
arrested, he had been humanely forgotten in prison by Fouquier, 
and thus saved in spite of letters in which he demanded to be placed 
on trial (W. 500, 3rd dossier, pp. 89, 90, 91). 



i82 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

and without the knowledge of the Tribunal, although they 
had been sent forward by the constituted authorities, by 
representatives of the people, and by decrees of the National 
Convention, and for crimes which came only within the 
purview of the Revolutionary Tribunal." 

This latter part of Montana's deposition gives cause for 
astonishment. We have not been able to find out on what 
written proofs he based the charge of having exempted 
any counter-revolutionary ex-nobles from punishment. ^ 

Nicolas Gastrez, aged 25, employed at the office of PubUc 
Instruction, residing at No. 1342 Rue de Seine, begged 
Dumas, who lived in the same house, to bring him with 
Gobertiere, one of his friends, into the Hall of the 
Tribunal on the day of Admiral's trial. The hearing had 
not begun. Dumas took him into his ofiice " where he was 
brought a letter, folded in a fancy shape, coming from the 
Luxembourg prison, and which he told them was signed 
by the ci-devant Comte de Fleury." This letter, which he 
read aloud after reading it to himself, contained expressions 
which Gastrez did not remember, " but which did not seem 
to him becoming to apply to a patriot." As soon as 
the letter was read, Fouquier came in and Dumas told 
him about it, asking him : " Does it not seem to you that 
this fine fellow is in a hurry ? " Fouquier answered : " Yes, 
he appears to me to be in a hurry, and I am going to send for 
him." This was done, the ci-devant Comte de Fleury 
was joined with the alleged accomplices in the plot against 
Robespierre, and underwent their fate. When he appeared 
at the Tribunal, the letter he had written to Dumas was not 
even mentioned to him, 

Jean Placide Gobertiere, employed in the Commission 
of Commerce, aged 26, appeared next, and declared that 
on the day of Admiral's trial he went with Gastrez to the 
Tribunal, He confirmed Gastrez's deposition in all details. 
He added that the Comte de Fleury was taken to the scaffold 
on the same day in a red shirt. 

Jean Louis Joly, aged 40, usher in the Criminal Tribunal 
^ W. 501, 2nd dossier, p, 65. 



A LAGGARD TRIBUNAL 183 

of the Department of Paris, deposed that some nine months 
before, about eleven o'clock at night, as he was on duty at 
the Criminal Tribunal during the hearing of a case, there 
arose a tumult. He left the court in order to silence the 
public. " The first persons whom he perceived, exciting 
the trouble, were Fouquier and Coffinhal." He urged them 

to be silent. They answered " that he could go to , 

that the Criminal Tribunal was composed only of aristocrats, 
and that they would find out the secret of putting them 
on their best behaviour." A little later, Fouquier threat- 
ened him again, and repeated the same remarks to him. 

On the 8th of Thermidor last, about seven or eight 
o'clock in the evening, as the witness was leaving his Tribunal, 
he met Fouquier on the Pont au Change. Having accosted 
him, the Public Prosecutor said to him : " Well, your 
Tribunal hardly keeps pace." Joly answered that the 
judges could not compound with the law, and that the 
manner in which proceedings were conducted was different 
from that of the Revolutionary Tribunal ; that, however, 
on the i6th of the same month, they were to have an affair 
in which there were fourteen prisoners, all charged with the 
printing and circulating false paper-money. Fouquier 
answered him : " Ah ! that is something ! As for me, I 
shall make fifty of them pass through it on the first day 
of the next decade."'^ 

The witness Didier Thirion, Deputy for the Moselle, 
thought that at Danton's trial it was the Public Prosecutor's 
duty to have the prisoners judged on the facts of which they 
were accused by the Convention, and not himself to have 
become their accuser by imputing to them absolutely 
false and calumnious facts in order to get a decree depriving 
them of the right to plead, and thus shorten their trial by 
preventing them from being heard. The National Con- 
vention would not have passed the decree depriving them 
af the right to plead if it had not been deceived by the report, 
based, as was said, on a letter from Fouquier-Tinville, 
stating that the prisoners were in revolt. If then, this last 
^ W. 501, 2nd dossier, pp. 65 and 67. 



i84 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

fact was demonstrated to be false, as it would be easy to 
determine from the depositions of those who were present 
at that session, it will be admitted that the Public Prosecutor 
had betrayed his trust. Nor was it less a betrayal when, 
in a single trial and at a single sitting, he brought to trial 
at one time as many as fifty or sixty persons, taken from all 
corners of the RepubHc, the greater number of whom had 
never seen each other and had not the least connection or 
correspondence with one another. The law could never 
have authorised the Public Prosecutor to make such a 
grouping {amalgame), and the Public Prosecutor should 
be guided, in his whole conduct, only by the Law and his 
own heart, which, if it had been animated by any feelings 
of humanity, would have indignantly repelled such measures. 

" The passive instrument of tyranny," Didier Thirion 
concluded, " is sometimes as guilty as the tyrant himself. 
Tyrants could do hardly anything without the cowardly 
and criminal complaisance of their slaves. Fouquier- 
Tinville should have abandoned or abdicated his functions, 
or have performed them with honour and probity. "^ 

Jean Lauchet, aged 34, general secretary of the Committee 
of General Security, residing at No. 22 Rue Nicaise, Paris, 
knew that Fouquier came very often to the Committee. 
His conferences with the members of this Committee were 
secret. However, on a certain night, as Fouquier was 
leaving very late, the witness spoke to him, and the con- 
versation turned on the great number of prisoners brought 
before the Tribunal every day. Fouquier answered that 
it was the only way to empty the prisons, and that things 
would never go well so long as they did not guillotine a 
hundred a day.^ 

Gilbert Liendon, aged 37, one of Fouquier-Tinville's 
ex-deputies, judge of the Tribunal of the Second Arrondisse- 
ment, residing at No. 68, Rue Beaubourg, had no knowledge 
of the fact that Fouquier, with whom rested the entire 
direction of the prosecutor's office, had been false to his 
trust. 

1 W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 78. * W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 64. 




Bertonnicr, dclt. 

DANTON 

BORN AT ARCIS-SUR-AUBE, 1759, GUILLOTINED IN PARIS, 1796 



A DISLIKE OF WITNESSES 185 

Grebeauval, aged 41, another of Fouquier-Tinville's 
ex-deputies, at present without employment, gave evidence 
to the same effect. 

Pierre Dusser, a commissioner of police, residing at No. 5, 
in the Rotonde du Temple, declared that he was present 
at the hearing on the day when the ex-Marshal de Noailles- 
Mouchy, his wife, and others were tried, and that Fouquier 
was sitting. " The woman Mouchy," said Dusser, " was 
at the end of the first bench, and Mouchy, her husband, 
at the beginning of the second. The President and Fouquier, 
as was usual, examined each of the prisoners, and the woman 
Mouchy, having been overlooked, made a demand whilst 
her husband was being examined, saying : ' But, citizens, 
you have asked me nothing.' Fouquier turned towards 
the prisoner, and then said in a low voice to the President : 
' Mouchy's wife has a right to speak now ? ' ' It is all 
the same,' said the President to the prisoners, ' you are 
together.' The proceedings went on, and I left only when 
the jury went out to consider their verdict. This woman 
was condemned to death without having been heard." 

Pierre Goubaux, aged 29, secretary in the prosecutor's 
office of the Criminal Tribunal of the Department of Paris, 
residing at No. 20, Rue Hauteville, had heard from Laplace, 
another secretary in the prosecutor's office, the story of 
a rather strange scene between Fouquier and one of the 
secretaries in his office. It had to do with a list of witnesses 
that Fouquier thought far too long. Swearing at intervals, 
he said to the man who seemed to have made out the list : 
" Do you not know then what I want to come to ? I want 
to induce the Tribunal to do without witnesses," and other 
similar expressions. In fact, a few days later, Goubaux 
saw " with some astonishment " the decree of the 22nd of 
Prairial. 

Personally, he had no other information to give in regard to 
Fouquier, except that he knew him to be a very violent man. 

Citizen Claude Nicolas La Place appeared, and confirmed 
Citizen Goubaux 's evidence. ^ 

* W. 501, 2nd dossier, pp. 52-54. 



i86 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

Jean Frederic Martin, aged 36, a lawyer, residing at No. 2, 
Quai de la Megisserie, had been imprisoned in the Luxem- 
bourg. He heard it said that Fouquier had gone to the 
janitor's room in that house of detention in accordance with 
a decree of the 15th or the i6th of Messidor^ ; and that there 
he had had an interview with one or several of the persons 
who made out the lists. Moreover, knowledge of this fact 
could be obtained either from Dubois, his secretary, or 
from Verney, the turnkey. 

When transferred, with a hundred and fifty-five others, 
from the Luxembourg house of detention to the Concier- 
gerie, the witness heard Fouquier give orders, through the 
window of the registry, that two of the hundred and fifty-five 
prisoners should be placed in the dark cell for having shown 
too much feeling in regard to the fate of fifty of their com- 
panions who were going down to the Tribunal to stand their 
trial ; a feeling all the more pardonable in those two 
prisoners as they knew that a similar fate awaited them the 
next day. In fact, on that very day, they were guillotined. 
The proof of those facts could be furnished by the turnkey 
of the Conciergerie and others. ^ 

The Richards, husband and wife, aged 48 and 49, janitors 
of the Conciergerie, had no knowledge of the facts imputed 
to Fouquier, The husband had " always known him to be 
a very violent man, whom he feared to approach." 

Anne Ducray, aged 35, a clerk in the registry of the 
Revolutionary Tribunal, residing at No. ^y, Rue Saint- 
Jacques, declared that he remembered none of the acts 
imputed to Fouquier. He had always recognised him to be 
" of a naturally violent character, which rendered him, so 
to speak, unapproachable." Several times he had seen 
him stamping his feet and showing all the signs of anger 
in regard to a case which he thought to be of importance, 
because an accused person had been acquitted. He heard him 
complaining of the verdicts of certain jurors and saying that 

^ Three or four days before the great hatches from the Luxem- 
bourg. 

* W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 43. 



WHOLESALE CONDEMNATIONS 187 

they would not delay ridding themselves of them. Fouquier 
always took " the precaution of choosing the moment when 
there were capital executions in the Place de la Revolution 
to have exposed there to the gaze of the people those who 
were condemned to chains or to imprisonment so as to make 
them enjoy the disgusting spectacle of the executions." 

Jean Robert Deschamps, aged 26^, registrar of Bicetre, 
knew that Fouquier came to Bicetre with Lanne, Herman's 
assistant. They sent for Valagnos and seven of his room- 
mates, put them in a row, and made the prisoners who were 
condemned to chains and the others pass before them in order 
that Valagnos might point out those who were guilty of con- 
spiracy. As he pointed them out, Fouquier asked them 
their names. On that day, the Public Prosecutor made 
out a warrant against thirty-seven individuals whom he 
immediately brought before the Tribunal. They were 
tried and condemned the next day. On the 7th of Messidor 
Fouquier came again to Bicetre. " He made a further 
choice of thirty-seven individuals in the same manner." 
He issued a warrant against these thirty-seven, then a 
special warrant against Osselin, whom he caused to be taken 
away. They were condemned the next day. Bicetre was, 
moreover, perfectly tranquil. Deschamps never perceived 
" the least germ of a conspiracy there." 

Citizeness Banville, aged 41, the divorced wife of Bourdon, 
a gold-beater, deposed that on the day of Hebert's execution, 
she went out of curiosity to see him pass. In the Rue du 
Roule 1 she was invited to go into a house whose owner she 
did not know. She there found Fouquier, whom she saw 
for the first time. When the condemned persons passed, 
Fouquier wanted to go to the window to see them. It 
was pointed out to him that he ought not to show himself, 
that the condemned persons should not be insulted. He 
immediately withdrew. 2 

Louis Francis Debusne, aged 48, a lieutenant of the 

^ This street began at the Rue des Fosses-Saint-Germain-FAuxer- 
rois and ended at the Rue Saint-Honore. 
* W. 501, 2nd dossier, pp. 57 and 44. 



i88 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

national police serving at the Tribunals, residing at 360 
Cul-de-Sac de la Fosse aux Chiens, Rue des Bourdonnais.. 
noticed one day when he was on duty at a session of the 
Tribunal and when thirty prisoners were tried, that 
" Fouquier showed much ill-humour and impatience " 
because they had all been condemned. 

On the i8th of Messidor, when those charged with the 
Luxembourg conspiracy were transferred, Debusne was 
in command of the detachment. When he reached the 
corner of the Rue de Harlay, Fouquier came and said to 
him that he had succeeded in having only half of them 
placed on trial ; that their names would be taken there, 
and that they were to alight at the Conciergerie, and he told 
him to prevent them from communicating with one another. 

Leonard Petit-Tressein, aged 36, a juror of the Tribunal, 
residing at No. 360 Rue Nicaise, on the morning of iSth of 
Messidor, before the trial, heard Fouquier asking Cofhnhal 
in the Council Chamber if he wished to act as President 
at the hearing next day, " seeing that it was an important 
affair." Cofhnhal asked what affair it was. Fouquier 
explained that ' ' it was half of those from the Luxembourg, 
to the number of seventy or eighty." 

Jean Frangois Esprit Canaple, aged 26, residing at Paris, 
in the Rue Neuve Denis, a seller of walking-sticks, on the 
19th of Messidor, the day on which the trial of " the Luxem- 
bourg conspirators " began, saw and heard Fouquier, at 
the window of the refreshment-room of the Palace, shouting 
to the guardians immediately to place in a cell two prisoners 
who had shown " feeling " towards the condemned. These 
two prisoners were condemned two days later ' ' for the same 
conspiracy."^ 

Germain Andre Goureau, aged 36, an official defender, of 
No. 7 Faubourg Poissonniere, gave details of what he 
knew about the conspiracy in the prisons. He was im- 
prisoned at the Plessis. He sought " to discover the 
creatures whom Fouquier employed with the object of 
multiplying the number of victims." 

»W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 84. 



"A STERN, UNAPPROACHABLE MAN" 189 

Jean Baptiste Darmaing, aged 23, secretary of the 
Convention, gave proofs, in his deposition, of the manner 
in which Fouquier allowed himself to be influenced by 
Vadier, who had sworn to ruin the Darmaings, his com- 
patriots of the Ariege. When giving testimony to these 
facts, the witness declared that Fouquier had sought to 
debase the National Convention, and to perpetuate the reign 
of tyranny, and that he had conspired against Liberty and 
the Rights of Man. 

The five Sansons — Pierre Charles, aged 40, a sub-lieutenant 
of artillery in the Parisian army ; Charles Henri, aged 55 ; 
Nicolas Charles Gabriel, aged 73 ; his son, aged 49 ; and 
Henri Sanson, aged 27, a captain of artillery — had nothing 
to state in regard to Fouquier-Tinville. Sanson's assistant, 
Pierre Francois Etienne Desmorest, who, as public execu- 
tioner, resided at No. 11 Faubourg Saint-Denis, declared 
that " every morning, before judgment was pronounced, 
Fouquier gave him verbal orders to set up the guillotine 
at a certain time, and to have ready the number of convey- 
ances he directed, and, in order to avoid irritating the 
public, he recommended him to keep them in different places 
but adjoining one another. "^ 

Antoine Sezille, an official defender, aged 51, residing 
in the Enclos de la Raison, Section de la Cite, had known 
Fouquier only during the year that he had frequented 
the Revolutionary Tribunal. He regarded him as " a stern, 
violent, almost unapproachable man." Having to defend 
Citizen Thomassin, a priest imprisoned in the Conciergerie, 
Sezille went to the prosecutor's office and asked Fouquier 
for the documents relating to the affair. Fouquier became 
angry and refused to hand them over. Some days later 
Sezille defended Thomassin, without documents and without 
a memorandum, " after having only had an interview for a 
quarter of an hour with him in the prisoners' room." 
Thomassin was acquitted. In the course of the preceding 
month of Floreal, Sezille was charged with the defence of 
Freteau, the ex-member of the Constituent Assembly who 
1 W. 501, 2nd dossier, pp. 63 and 58. 



igo THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

was acquitted, but was to be kept in prison as a suspect 
until the general peace. For eight days the advocate 
begged Fouquier to deliver to him a copy of Freteau's 
sentence of acquittal, without being able to obtain it. 
Fouquier refused to send the documents to the registry. 
At each ineffectual step taken by the advocate, Fouquier 
would answer harshly : " You think you have got your 
Freteau, but you shall not have him." As a matter of fact, 
some days after the law of the 22nd of Prairial, which sup- 
pressed the defenders, Freteau was again placed on trial. 
' ' Thus in his case the maxim non bis in idem was violated 
by sending him again to trial for a crime of which he had 
been acquitted." He suffered the punishment of death. ^ 

Fran9ois Marie Paris, aged 28, a lawyer, residing at 37 
Rue Grenata, gave evidence as follows : "A prisoner in 
the Luxembourg since the 29th of Brumaire of the year IL, 
I was to have been numbered among the victims of the 
Terror, for, on the loth of Thermidor, four prisoners from 
my Section and myself were transferred from the Luxem- 
bourg to the Conciergerie. The municipality of Paris was 
in its entirety guillotined on that day and we were saved. 
During the twent3^ days I still remained at the Conciergerie, 
I met Fouquier^ there. I spoke to him in these terms : 
' You know me. You know who I am. You are not ignor- 
ant that my principles have always been for the Revolu- 
tion.' Fouquier answered me : ' What would you, my 
friend ? The order was precise. Sent forward, as you were, 
by a popular commission to the Committees of Public Safety 
and of General Security, and those two Committees having 
sent you on to the Revolutionary Tribunal with injunctions 
to the Public Prosecutor to place you on trial, I had not 
the power to determine your freedom.' 

' ' At that moment I regarded Fouquier rather as the kindly 
executant of barbarous and sanguinary orders that were 
given him rather than as a genuine Public Prosecutor. 
I ceased to speak to him. However, since I left prison, 

^ W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 53. 

* Imprisoned, as we have seen, on the 14th of Thermidor. 



AN IMPORTANT WITNESS 191 

I have learned that he had in no way deceived me, that 
in very reaUty I was to be one of his victims, for on the side 
of the papers relating to me, he had written in large letters, 
' Ready for delivery.' "^ 

Finally, on the 12th of Brumaire, at noon, an important 
witness appeared before Judge Forestier. This was Pierre 
Noel Subleyras, an ex-registrar of the Tribunal of the District 
of Uzes, who, during the Terror, had become President 
of the Popular Commission of the Museum (the Louvre). 
The sinister reputation of the Popular Commissions of Paris 
is well known, that of having been commissioned " to empty 
the prisons." Subleyras had formerly performed for a time 
the functions of judge of the Revolutionary Tribunal, 
functions to which he had been appointed on September 
26th, 1793.^ 

Subleyras declared that ' ' about the middle of the preceding 
decade, Fouquier-Tinville's wife brought him a letter from 
her husband,^ in which he asked him to give him collated 

1 W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 60. 

* It was he who at the trial of Hebert, Ronsin, and others, col- 
lected notes along with Naulin and Cof&nhal, judges like himself, 
during the proceedings. Every evening these three men met to 
collect these notes and to make them into a work which it was intended 
to print, a fantastic work which suppressed the proofs against 
Pache and Hanriot in order to place them to Danton's account, but so 
clumsily that it is impossible not to recognise Pache in the matter. 

» This is Fouquier's letter : — 

" To Citizen Subleyras, President of the Popular Commission 
established at the former Louvre. 

(In Sublej/ras's hand — " Ne varietur the 13th of Brumaire of the 
year III. of the Republic one and indivisible. Subleyras.") 

" I need, citizen, a copy certified by the Commission of the different 
letters that I have written relative to the persons who were to be 
placed on trial, either those who were sent forward (for that purpose) 
or those who were foimd to be implicated in conspiracies in the prisons ; 
I particularly need the letter written by me on the night between the 
18th and the 19th of Messidor : these letters are indispensable to me 
to repel the attacks of my enemies in that direction ; I hope, citizen, 
that you will hasten to procure this deliverance for my wife, who, for 
this purpose, will send you this present. Trenchard groans in the same 
prison. 

" Greeting and fraternity, A. Q. Fouquier. 

" This ist of Brumaire of the year III. of the Republic one and 
indivisible. Pelagie." (W. 500, 2nd dossier, p. 32.) 



192 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

copies of the letters written by him (Fouquier) to the former 
Popular Commissions, and relating to the accused persons 
whom he had to place on trial. 

When he was Public Prosecutor, Fouquier had sent to 
the Commission of the Museum some lists of " individuals " 
whom he was to place on trial for the conspiracy in the 
prisons. He invited the Commission to send him any 
documents and information it had respecting them. On 
this invitation, Subleyras affirmed, the Commission sent to 
Fouquier the documents it had and the reports that had been 
made out in the Paris Sections concerning some of the 
prisoners on the lists. Those documents remained at the 
Tribunal. This was all, according to Subleyras's account, 
that the Popular Commission knew of the conspiracy of the 
prisons ! 

He added that, on the 7th of Thermidor, two days before 
Robespierre's fail, Fouquier had told the Commission that 
some of those reports had reached him, and that he had 
asked it for such documents as it might have.^ 

Madame Fouquier-Tinville continued to take measure 
after measure, step after step, in the interests of her hus- 
band's defence. Three times, during the first ten days of 
this month of Brumaire, she went to Subleyras. Not being 
able to see him, she had written the following letter : — 

" This 8th of Brumaire, year HI. of the Repubhc. 

No. 242 Rue de la Harpe. 
" I pray you, citizen, to be good enough to give me an 
answer relating to what I have asked you for my husband, 
the copy of those letters which are indispensable to him in 
the present circumstances ; for three days in succession I 
have gone to your house without being able to see you. As 
I am a long distance off, I pray you to let me know if you 
have found these papers, and if you can give me a copy of 
them ; you will oblige your fellow-citizen. 

" Fouquier's Wife." ^ 

(To Citizen Subleyras, No. 108 Rue des Petits-Champs.) 
1 W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 144. ' W. 500, 2nd dossier, p. 31. 



INDISPENSABLE DOCUMENTS 193 

It is easy to understand the importance which Fouquier 
attached to the possession of those copies. They were 
indispensable to him. In his defence he had to prove that 
he had acted only in virtue of the orders of the Committee 
of Public Safety. The Committee had sent him a list of 
names, telling him that these prisoners had conspired in 
the Luxembourg house of detention. The Committee had 
sent him a resolution of the 17th of Messidor, ordering him 
to bring to trial within twenty-four hours all those charged 
with conspiracy in the prisons. According to the expression 
he used in the course of his examination on the ist of 
Frimaire, "when the Law speaks, the pubhc official must act." 
He could not therefore avoid (it is still his own argument 
that we reproduce) prosecuting and bringing to trial all the 
individuals named on that list. He had not desired to know 
either how that list and others were sent to the Committee, 
or by whom they were made out. He had received no 
revelation in regard to this ; he had only " performed the 
imperious duty prescribed by the Law." Then he wrote 
to the Popular Commission of the Museum to ask it for the 
documents which it might have for the prosecution or for 
the defence. The Committee of Public Safety having 
decided, on the i8th of Messidor, that the 158 persons 
suspected of conspiracy in the Luxembourg should be tried 
in three sections, on the same evening, when he returned 
home, he immediately informed the Popular Commission. 
It was this letter and some others sent by him to Subleyras 
that he needed to clear himself. They would testify in his 
favour, would establish that he was only an agent of the 
Committees, and prove that he only carried out their orders 
strictly. 

But this written evidence of his obedience which he 
claimed, and which no one would dream of refusing 
him, would also prove that, a servile magistrate, entirely 
subject, through fear or interest, to the Committees, he had 
been the diligent workman of a work of blood. The principal 
artisans in that work perished on the scaffold on the loth of 
Thermidor. Those who remained were denounced and 



194 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

hunted down. It was the zealous, indefatigable official of 
the Terror that the Themidorian purification aimed at and 
pursued in his person. 

As Public Prosecutor Leblois said in his speech against 
Fouquier : " Invested for nearly eighteen months with the 
painful obligation of searching out and prosecuting crime, 
but honoured during the same period also with the holy 
and consoling mission of supporting innocence, of defending 
it, and of protecting it, it might be said that Fouquier- 
Tinville made it his sport to overthrow these two objects 
and to take them in an inverse sense." 



CHAPTER IX 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE AFFIRMS HIS INNOCENCE AND HIS 
HUMANITY. PUBLIC PROSECUTOR LEBLOIS ARGUES 
AGAINST HIM. 

THE days passed. Fouquier was waiting to be exam- 
ined. On the gth of Brumaire he was transferred 
from Sainte-Pelagie to the Plessis-Egahte, to 
that house of detention which the Parisians, at the 
time he was Pubhc Prosecutor, had named " Fouquier's 
storehouse." " The horror that he inspired was such that 
the prisoners nearly killed him. The janitor confined him to 
his room. He wanted one day to open his window to 
take the air ; horrible imprecations forced him to shut it 
immediately." ^ 

He lived then apart, walled in, enclosed, alone with his 
thoughts, thoughts that absolved him. His heart was free 
from crime. It was in his opinion the heart of a good citizen. 
But hatred pursued him without an intermission. He was 
a victim of that feeling of duty which led him to per- 
form public functions " with diligence and vigour." He 
did not ask himself whether the lives of all those men and 
women whom he had sent to execution were worth nothing. 
In his eyes they were the enemies of the Republic and 
traitors. They were conspiring against liberty and virtue. 
As Public Prosecutor his duty was towards the Revolution 
and its heads. He had fulfilled the law. 

Finally, on the ist of Frimaire in the year III. (November 
21, 1794), he was taken from the Plessis house of detention 
to the Tribunal and examined by Judge Forestier, assisted 

^ Campardon : Le Tribunal Revolutionnaire de Pans, II., p. 138, 
Details furnished by the journal entitled La Vedette. 

195 



196 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

by Raymond Josse, his registrar, and Jean Jacques Granger, 
his deputy. Here is his examination : 

The Judge : "Did you not, while you held your office, and 
especially in the last months of it, give orders every morning 
to the public executioner to set up the guillotine, and to pre- 
pare a more or less considerable number of conveyances ? " 

A. — " As regards the guillotine, there was for a time 
a question of leaving it up permanently. Afterwards, 
because the materials were kept in the Rue du Pont-aux- 
Choux and as it took five hours and more to erect, it has 
happened two or three times that the order to set it up was 
given, but only to execute the persons condemned on the 
previous day in accordance with the sentence of the 
court. In order to avoid the unpleasantness of seeing 
those materials transported from the Pont-aux-Choux, 
the Department was asked for premises in which to 
place the materials and the wood. Those premises 
were granted near the Place de la Revolution. At no 
time was an order given by me to set up the guillotine, 
except for the purpose of executing sentences that had been 
passed. As regards the other part of the question, having 
seen the scandal (I mean this fact had been reported to 
me) of allowing as many as twelve or fourteen condemned 
persons to be piled up on the same cart, and the Com- 
mittee of Public Safety having blamed me for it, notifying to 
me its desire that each cart should contain only seven 
individuals, next day I summoned the public executioner 
and notified to him the order to place only seven individuals 
at most in the same cart, and to arrange in such a way that 
the executions should never be postponed until the following 
day. When the executioner remarked that it was often 
very difficult to find carts in sufficient nunjber for the same 
day (for he only received the order at about half -past three) , 
and also on account of the known scarcity of horses, I 
advised him to have some always ready, preferring and 
desiring that they should be useless rather than that con- 
demned persons should be crowded on a single cart as 
had happened before. 




THE GUILLOTINE 



THE CHOICE OF JURORS 197 

"In spite of my advice in this respect, it sometimes 
happened that condemned persons in excess of the number 
seven were placed in the carts. But in all this I only acted 
from a motive of humanity and to alleviate the sufferings of 
the condemned persons in so far as it lay in my power. 
I have never known and could not know whether any of 
the persons placed on trial would be condemned, nor what 
their number would be. The proof is that very frequently 
the carts were useless." 

Q. — " Who raised the question of leaving the guillotine 
up permanently ? " 

A. — " It was discussed at the Committee of Public 
Safety." 

O. — " Have you always conformed to the exact selection of 
the jurors who were to sit in any given case ? Did you not 
intend to exclude some who might be more humane ? Have 
you not, on the contrary, made choice of those whose char- 
acter appeared to you fitter for doing what was called firing 
an uninterrupted volley ? " 

A. — " I never made any choice of jurors through preference 
in any given case ; if I have made a choice of them, it was 
not purposely or consciously ; I have never known any 
of the jurors very intimately. I point out that the ushers 
sometimes made mistakes in summoning the jurors ; but I 
never believed that those mistakes were the fruit of crime, 
but rather that of error. I have never made use of the 
expression ' firing an uninterrupted volley ' ; I have never 
known anything but the execution of the laws. Since the 
terrible law of the 22nd of Prairial, the reformation of which 
I have perpetually but vainly solicited from the Committees 
of Public Safety and of General Securit}^, every time I have 
sat I have never made a single opening or closing speech 
calculated to influence the opinion of the jurors in any way 
against accused persons who were already so unfortunate 
as to be deprived of defenders. I may even add that I have 
never forgotten to point out to the jurors and to outline the 
documentary evidence for the defence provided by the 
accused persons as well as that for the prosecution." 



198 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

Q. — " Have you not held conferences about the com- 
position of the juries with various persons who came either 
to the hearings or to the prosecutor's office or to your own 
room ? Have not those persons influenced you ? Have 
you not combined with them beforehand to secure the 
acquittal or the conviction of certain persons ? " 

A. — " I have never done anything so monstrous. Nobody 
has ever presumed to make proposals of such a nature to me. 
I should have treated as they deserved any persons what- 
soever who would have done so. I point out that when the 
Committee of Public Safety proposed to me, and even pressed 
me to have General Kellermann and other individuals tried, 
I always refused, and for this reason alone, that the order 
was given me without the attendance of certain witnesses 
whom I regarded as indispensable." 

Q. — " Who are the members of the Committee of Public 
Safety who gave you such orders ? " 

A. — " Robespierre and Couthon summoned me to the 
Committee and in the name of the Committee for that 
purpose in the early days of Messidor, some time before 
Robespierre ceased going to the Committee. Immediately 
Couthon had been carried^ to the bottom of the staircase, 
he caused me to be summoned to the Committee of Public 
Safety where he had remained for something else, and 
said to me : ' Above all, do not fail to have Kellermann 
tried before Dubois de Crance's arrival.' This injunction, 
joined with the quarrel that had taken place between Cou- 
thon and Dubois de Crance, was sufficient to convince me 
that Couthon bore ill-will to Kellermann as well as to 
Dubois de Crance. It was at two o'clock in the afternoon 
that I was summoned to the Committee, as Couthon never 
went there after dinner." 

Q. — " Have you not had intimate relations or a special 
understanding with Robespierre, Saint-Just, Lebas, Dumas, 
Coffinhal, Fleuriot, and other conspirators, the enemies 
of the people and of liberty ? Have you not known, 
shared, and supported their counter-revolutionary opinions 
* Couthon was paralysed. — Tr. 



THE CAPTURE OF COFFINHAL 199 

and arrangements ? Were you not associated with 
them ? " 

A. — " I could hmit myself to remarking that it was I, in 
my capacity of Public Prosecutor, who on the loth 'of 
Thermidor, demanded that the law should be enforced 
against all those afore-mentioned conspirators, who were 
outlawed by a decree of the Convention, with the exception 
of Coffinhal, who was only captured on the i8th/ an enforce- 
ment of the law that I certainly would never have demanded 
if I had been initiated into or engaged in any way in the 
counter-revolutionary projects of the various conspirators. 
But I believe I ought to give a little fuller scope to my answer. 

1 On the night between the 9th and loth of Thermidor, Coffinhal, 
seeing the Commune conquered and Robespierre and his friends in the 
hands of the Conventionals, hurled himself on Hanriot, whose drunk- 
enness had ruined everything, and flung him out of one of the win- 
dows of the Hotel de Ville on to a dung-heap. Then he disappeared 
into the night. He was vainly sought for during several days. 

He had fled towards the Seine, and, disguised as a boatman, had 
gone down with the stream to the lie des Cygnes, where he had hidden 
himself. He remained there two days and two nights, staying his 
hunger with the bark of trees, and drenched by the torrential rain 
that fell continuously. 

At last, being able to hold out no longer, the outlaw left the island 
and went to a friend to whom he had rendered some services. He 
asked him for food, clothes, and money. This man brought him 
into his house, and then, locking the door, went to inform against 
him. 

Coffinhal was arrested on the night between the 17th and i8th of 
Thermidor and taken to the Conciergerie. " Nothing can paint 
the tortures I have endured," he said to the turnkey. " The death 
that is preparing for me is a benefit and a kindness compared with 
what I have suffered." 

As the Revolutionary Tribunal no longer existed, a decree of 
the Convention decided that the Criminal Tribunal should verify 
the outlaw's identity and send him to execution. It was on the 
18th of Thermidor that he appeared before Oudart. Four witnesses 
identified him. Public Prosecutor Leblois demanded the applica- 
tion of the law. Coffinhal was then led to the Place de la Revolution, 
in a heavy rain, in the midst of hooting. The people crowded against 
the cart, and tried to stab or strike him with their umbrellas, saying, 
" Well, Coffinhal, guard against that thrust, if you can I " This was 
an allusion to a saying of the ex-Vice-President of the Revolutionary 
Tribunal to a fencing-master who had just been condemned to death, 
" Well, old fellow, guard against that thrust if you can." 

Coffinhal died courageously. 



200 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

In consequence, I declare that I have never had any intimate 
connection with the Robespierres, Saint-Just, Couthon, 
and Lebas, that I have never seen them except at the Com- 
mittees of Pubhc Safety and of General Security, and then 
as members of those Committees ; that I have never been 
to the houses of any of them, except once to that of the elder 
Robespierre, on the day of the attempt on Collot d'Herbois, 
just as I had been to that of Collot whom I did not find at 
home ; the despotic tone with which Robespierre received 
me would have estranged me for ever, even if I had been 
anxious to go there ; never have I been in any of the houses 
to which I have learned since my arrest that the conspirators 
repaired. I have never had any private correspondence 
with them. As for Dumas, I only knew him as President ; 
moreover, Dumas was notoriously known to be my enemy, 
so much so that he tried at different times to have me 
replaced. 

" As for Fleuriot and Coffinhal, I knew them only sub- 
sequent to their becoming members of the Tribunal. I have 
sometimes had meals with them, as is customary among 
members of the same tribunal. But I never perceived 
that they were engaged in a conspiracy. They never made 
any overtures to me in this respect. Finally, I had no 
knowledge of this conspiracy, except on the gth of Thermidor 
in common with all other citizens. The proof of my denial 
follows from my conduct on the evening of the 9th of Thermi- 
dor. I remained at my post up to the moment when I 
went to the assembled Committees of Public Safety and of 
General Security. It is notorious that I did not go to the 
rebel Commune, in spite of the repeated invitations of emis- 
saries who were sent to me for that purpose. It also 
follows from the declarations made by Cofiiinhal, in the 
presence of several gendarmes, that I counted for nothing 
in this conspiracy ; that Coffinhal, and Dumas, were 
the only members of the Tribunal who were initiated into 
it. This declaration has been drawn up in the form of a 
report by the officers of gendarmerie who despatched it to 
Deputy Freron." 



THE EXECUTION OF THE TRIUMVIRATE 201 

Q, — " \Vlio were the emissaries and by whom were 
they sent ? " 

A. — " I did not know them. But they announced them- 
selves as coming from the Commune, to which all the 
authorities of Paris were invited to repair, according to 
what was said." 

Q. — " Have you not shown that you were affected by 
the condemnation of those conspirators, and in particular 
that of Fleuriot ? Were you not full of reproaches at the 
fact that this conspirator, as it happened, was executed last 
of those who were condemned with him ?^ What were 
the reasons for this special interest that you took in the said 
Fleuriot ? " 

A. — " It was usual for the ushers to give me an account 
of the executions and to tell me if any incident took place. 
On the day of the execution of Robespierre, Saint- Just, 
Fleuriot, and others, my usher, Tavernier, came to tell me 
that the execution was over. I then remarked to him : 
' Of course, you have taken the precaution of having the 
triumvirate of Couthon, Robespierre, and Saint- Just 
executed last ? ' On Tavernier' s answer that the Mayor of 
Paris had been executed last, I said to him : ' You are a 
good fellow ; but you are always doing something foolish. 
Did you not feel that chiefs such as those I have mentioned 
ought to be executed last, and not the Mayor and others 
who were only accessories ? ' And I added : ' Your 
blunder will cause me many reproaches.' In fact, the public 
thought it very extraordinary that those three individuals 
were not executed last. But it was not out of any interest 
towards Fleuriot that I made those remarks to Tavernier." 

Q. — " Did you not, in the exercise of your functions, 

perform many harsh and arbitrary acts ? Have you not 

threatened those who came to speak to you on behalf of 

various prisoners, various condemned persons ? Have you 

1 We have seen in Chapter V. that, on the loth of Thermidor, 
Fouquier-Tinville, who had pleaded against Robespierre, Couthon, 
Saint- Just, etc., rose and left the Tribunal at the moment for pleading 
against his friend, Lescot-FIeuriot, Mayor of Paris. It was his deputy, 
Liendon, who then pleaded. 



202 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

been exact in reading or laying due stress at the hearings 
upon the memorials, documents, or evidence for the defence 
that were sent to you in favour of those who were placed 
on trial ? Has it not happened that you placed several 
accused persons on trial before you opened the packets 
containing the documents for the defence ? Have not 
several of those persons been condemned, and do you 
not think that you are responsible for those condemna- 
tions ? " 

A. — " I have never performed any arbitrary act either 
out of hatred, or out of resentment, or for any other reason. 
I have never used harshness towards anybody whatsoever. 
If my quick and petulant temper has caused me to be con- 
sidered a harsh man by anybody, most of the upright men 
who know me will not fail to do me the justice that I was as 
gentle as I was humane towards those who presented them- 
selves to me for any reason whatsoever, above all towards 
the unfortunate. I have never used any threat of the 
class mentioned in the question. I have always busied 
myself, and I have enjoined the same upon my secretaries, 
in joining together all the documents relating to each 
accused person. I carefully opened my mails every day, 
and even several times a day. Every time documents 
reached me from the Committee of General Security or 
from other constituted authorities, I made haste to send 
them to my deputies who were in Court. It is not within 
my knowledge that an}^ documents for the defence relating 
to accused persons were not produced ; and when accused 
persons who were on trial claimed documents in Court, 
they were always searched for. Moreover, as I have 
remarked above, I have always taken care to hand over 
to the jurors the documents for the defence put in either 
by the accused persons or by those who interested me in 
their fate, together with a ticket indicating the names of 
each of the accused persons." 

Q. — " Did you not, in league with the conspirators (and 
in order to bring about the deaths of those whom you had 
designated or who had been indicated to you), resolve to 



"DUMAS' FRIGHTFUL CELERITY" 203 

place on trial a considerable number of accused persons ? 
Did you not cause them to be tried with such haste that 
it became impossible for them to be heard or for there to be 
even sufficient time to ask them their names and the formal 
questions it is usual to put in such circumstances ? " 

A. — " I have already remarked that I have had no 
connection or acquaintance with any conspirator. I have 
not ceased to prosecute conspirators without any regard 
to person or rank, and this is one of the secret motives for 
my arrest and the persecutions I am experiencing. This 
question shows well enough that it is desired to make me 
responsible for the rapidity with which Dumas exercised 
his functions. However, nobody can be ignorant that the 
President, then as well as to-day, was the master to decide 
whether the accused persons should be accorded or refused 
the right to speak. Further, I never made any arrangement 
with him as to the prompt or slow manner of trying accused 
persons. As often as I sat (which was very seldom), I have 
moderated, in so far as it depended on me, Dumas' frightful 
celerity, and granted accused persons the right to speak. 
In regard to the number of those accused persons, no law 
then prescribed the maximum or minimum number that 
were to be placed on trial for the different offences with 
which they were charged. Besides, in this respect I have 
exactly followed the orders of the Committee of Public 
Safety, which at that period had plenary powers. It is 
quite true that, in my capacity as Public Prosecutor, I have 
placed on trial several persons charged with different 
offences. But that is only on account of the reproach 
made against the Tribunal in a report of the Committee of 
Public Safety to the Convention on the 9th of Ventose. 
In a word, it has never happened, whatever may have been 
the number of those placed on trial, that they have been 
tried without being questioned, all of them, at the hearing. 
This fact is notorious. But it was not the result of a criminal 
arrangement." 

Q. — " How could you, at the same hearing, have included 
on the same list and for the same offence, fifty, sixty, or 



204 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

more individuals of all ranks and conditions, who had never 
either spoken to one another or known one another, and, 
until then, had been separated from one another by great 
distances ? " 

A. — " The placing on trial of fifty or sixty individuals 
or more has been very rare. I believe even that this has 
not occurred in such great numbers except for different 
crimes, and that the indictments including few or more 
individuals characterise and specify each of the offences 
that were personal to them. This fact is easy to verify 
by an inspection of the indictments. Thus it is of little 
importance whether they were from the same place or 
from distances very remote from one another and for diverse 
offences. Moreover, I have only adopted this measure 
in accordance with the orders and the very pronounced 
wish of the Committees of Public Safety and of General 
Security, to whom I exactly dehvered every evening the 
list of verdicts passed by the Tribunal, whether of condemna- 
tion or acquittal. In regard to individuals of different 
professions, I only determined to group the unhappy 
prisoners of different professions after the difficulty arose 
from the law of the 22nd of Prairial, which provided among 
other things (Article 18) that the judgments passed by the 
Council Chamber could not be executed without having 
been approved by the Committees of Public Safety and of 
General Security. Important occupations rendered this 
measure impossible and void. The motive which determined 
the grouping was the desire more effectively to bring about 
the release of a crowd of individuals who would have remained 
in prison if this grouping had not been employed, and it took 
place, moreover, only in accordance with the orders of the 
members of the Committees of Public Safety and of General 
Security. Those Committees have approved of this measure, 
insomuch that, in a report made to the Convention on the 
9th of Thermidor, they note the fact that, in spite 
of the measures and means employed by the Tribunal 
for accelerating the trials of the conspirators, the two 
Committees, on the previous day, resolved on new measures 



THE FUNCTIONS OF THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR 205 

intended to bring to trial without delay all conspirators 
throughout the Republic. 

" Finally, so far as concerns myself, I have never desig- 
nated anybody as deserving, by preference, to be struck 
by the sword of the law, but I have placed individuals on 
trial according as the law enjoined me," 

Q. — " Have you not exceeded the punishments pro- 
nounced against various accused persons ? Are you sure 
that, out of the great number of persons tried or condemned, 
there was such an identification of their persons that it is 
impossible that condemned persons were set free, whilst 
individuals who had not been placed on trial and against 
whom there was no indictment were none the less sent to 
death ? " 

A. — " Far from having exceeded any of the condemnations 
pronounced, I have, on the contrary, given the most precise 
orders to execute exactly and strictly the condemnations 
pronounced against them. In regard to the rest of the 
question, I very rarely sat in Court. When I did so, if 
I was obliged to bring a verbal indictment against the 
prisoners not included in the written indictment and against 
whom charges were brought forward in the course of the 
proceedings, I have always demanded, at the end of my 
verbal indictment, that an official report of it should be 
drawn up by the registrar. The same must have been done 
by my deputies. My functions were limited to that. 
The drawing up and signing concerned the President, the 
judges, and the registrar. I cannot be responsible for 
omissions or errors that may have been made in this respect, 
though I do not think they have been made. As regards 
the identity of individuals who were condemned, their 
names were exactly inscribed on the printed paper intended 
to be sent to the executioner by the registrar on duty. 
It is not within my knowledge that one person has ever been 
sent to death for another. Further, I beg the Tribunal 
in its justice to point out to me an instance of this. I 
undertake to answer it." 

Q. — " Have you always faithfully secured to the accused 



2o6 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

persons or to the nation the return of the sums of money 
lodged with you ? Have you taken care exactly out 
of these sums to provide for the needs of those for whom 
they were intended, and who asked for assistance ? " 

A. — " I have never personally received or handled any 
monies. These sums were received in my name by the 
secretaries and clerks delegated according to the court 
registrar for that purpose. 

" Each object bore an identifying number. But those 
which I received in my own letters, sent for different prison- 
ers, I always sent Frangois to the post to cash. On my 
orders, Francois delivered them to the registrar entrusted 
with that duty. This employee has, through his negligence, 
given ground for many complaints, in particular for not 
having distributed, each week, the sums due to the prisoners. 
I have never retained any sum belonging to the condemned 
or to the prisoners. The woman Richard, the janitor 
of the Conciergerie, had orders to deposit them in the registry 
so that the proof ought to exist in a register. Towards the 
end of Messidor, the treasurer of the Hospice gave me a bill 
of exchange for four thousand and some hundreds of livres, 
belonging to a m.an named Leborgne, then detained in the 
said hospital. This Leborgne, arrested by order of the 
Committee of General Security, was charged with very 
grave counter-revolutionary offences ; I believed I could 
see, from an inspection of this bill, that he might have 
considerable deposits at Paris. That is why I believed 
that I ought to keep this bill of exchange, which I placed 
in my desk, in a drawer intended for objects of this sort, 
and with this inscription on it : ' This bill of exchange 
belongs to Leborgne, detained at the Hospice, To be attached 
to the documents pertaining to the said Leborgne and veri- 
fied.' This bill of exchange was found in that drawer 
(at the time of the examination of the said room made by 
the Deputies commissioned by the Convention to do so), 
by one of them whose name I do not remember, but who is 
five feet two inches high, with a dark face and dark hair. 
This commissioner declared, in the presence of Citizens 



DEPRIVED OF DEFENCE 207 

Dobsen and Petit, that he had held the said bill of exchange 
and had put it back among the papers." 

Q. — " Have you not, in a fashion, boasted of the great 
number of prisoners whom you have brought to trial, and 
have you not addressed threats to those who begged you for 
the justice which you owed them and for the pity to be 
expected from you on account of their misfortune ? Have 
you not prosecuted and even punished the sensibility that 
some prisoners showed at the sight of the great number of 
those who were going away to be executed ? '"' 

A. — " These statements are as atrocious as they are new 
to me. My character for humanity assures me that I shall 
be avenged by posterity for such insults." 

Q. — " At the trial of Danton and others did you not pre- 
tend that you suspected a rebellion and a lack of respect 
towards the Tribunal and at the hearing, in order to derive 
from this an opportunity to solicit a decree which took from 
them the right to plead and thus deprived them of the means 
of being heard and defending themselves ? Did you not 
announce beforehand that you would obtain this decree ? " 

A. — " The minute of the letter written by me, on the 15th 
of Germinal, to the Committee of Public Safety, relative to 
that affair was found at the time my papers were examined. 
It forms part of the quota taken away by the Deputies 
commissioned to make the search. This letter answers the 
question in a manner that destroys all imputations. As for 
the last part of the question, I declare that, on the contrary, 
I announced to the accused that I hoped to be able to bring 
about the appearance of the deputies they desired." 

Q. — " Have you not imagined projects of insurrection in 
the prisons in order to derive from this an opportunity for 
placing on trial a greater number of accused persons, and 
precisely those whose deaths had been promised ? " 

A. — "Without the law of the 23rd Ventose, which expressly 
provides that whoever shall attempt to open the prisons shall 
be declared a traitor to the country and punished as such, a 
law which imposed on me the rigorous duty of prosecuting 
and placing on trial all individuals charged with these 



2o8 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

offences, I should have had a difficulty in beUeving in the con- 
spiracies on which the Committee of Public Safety lodged 
informations with me. But when the Law speaks, the public 
official must act. Now I state that the Committee of Public 
Safety furnished me with a list of names, declaring to me that 
these individuals had formed part of a conspiracy in the 
Luxembourg house of detention, together with a resolution of 
the 17th of Messidor providing that I should be bound to bring 
to trial within twenty-four hours, all those charged with 
conspiracy in the houses of detention. That is why, in 
virtue of the law cited above, I could not avoid prosecuting 
and placing on trial all the individuals named on that list. 

" I did the same, afterwards, in regard to two other lists 
that were delivered to me in succession by the same Com- 
mittee and on which were placed the names of a certain 
number of prisoners from the house of the Carmelites and 
from that of Lazare. I am entirely ignorant in what way 
those lists were delivered to the Committee and by whom 
they were made out. No member of the Committee made 
me the least revelation in this respect. I am equally ignorant 
if this measure was imagined because there were not sufficient 
offences to reach the persons named on those lists. 

" As for me, I have performed the imperious duty which 
was enjoined on me by law by writing to the Popular Com- 
mission and inviting it to send me without delay all the 
documents for conviction or acquittal concerning the prison- 
ers that it might have. And, for this purpose, I sent it, as 
fast as they reached me, the lists of prisoners who were to be 
placed on trial. Moreover, as a proof that I acted only in 
virtue of the orders and wishes of the Committee of Public 
Safety, I may say that the Committee having decided on my 
representations on the evening of the i8th of Messidor that 
the 158 prisoners charged with conspiracy in the Luxem- 
bourg should be tried at three sessions, namely those of the 
19th, the 2ist, and the 22nd, when I got back I immediately 
informed the Commission of this. Finally, I would add 
that I knew so little about this conspiracy and the alleged 
motives for which it was imagined, that there ought to be. 



THE LISTS OF WITNESSES 209 

among the documents of the trial, a letter from Citizen 
Lanne, deputy-commissioner of the Administration of 
Civil Affairs, Police, and Tribunals, dated the i8th of Messi- 
dor, in answer to mine, giving the names of the witnesses 
to be heard in this affair, and that I had never seen or 
known the witnesses indicated in that letter, with the excep- 
tion of Benoit who had appeared in the affair of Grammont and 
others. I have never had correspondence with this Benoit, 
and I have never even been willing to allow him into my 
room in spite of the repeated requests to do so made in his 
letters. They can be found among the letters I threw 
aside." 

Q. — " Have you not caused all those makers of the lists 
to be heard as witnesses ? Did you not concert with them 
as to the nature of the depositions they were to make ? Has 
it not happened that you caused them to be arrested and 
even punished because in some circumstances they had 
given evidence for the defence ? Was there not an under- 
standing with them that they would be guided in their 
depositions by signs that you had agreed to make to 
them ? " 

A. — " I could not, knowingly, have caused the makers of 
lists to be heard, for the authors were unknown to me, and 
the lists, as I have already remarked, were handed to me 
by the Committee of Public Safety, except for one informa- 
tion written in my own hand, an information which was 
lodged with me after the Luxembourg conspiracy by a man 
named Verney, then a turnkey in that house of detention. 
This declaration is attached to the documents.^ What is 
gratuitously imputed to me is monstrous. Moreover, 
those signs are clearly demonstrated to be false, for the 
witness's back is turned to the Public Prosecutor, and, 
besides, a man does not come to commit such a monstrous 
offence unless he has committed others before it, which 
cannot be proved against me. It is false that I ever sought 
to intimidate any witness in this case, or in any other. It is 
true only that, on account of the ambiguities and evasions of 
1 Archives Nationales, W. 500, 2nd dossier, p. 28. 
o 



210 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

a turnkey whose name I have forgotten/ the Tribunal 
ordered this latter' s arrest as a provisional measure of 
security." 

Q. — " Have you not allowed yourself to be dominated by 
ill-humour and violence in cases when accused persons were 
acquitted, where you had presumed condemnation ? Have 
you not claimed to retain them by your own sole authority, 
and threatened to seize them again and have them tried 
anew ? Were not some condemned in this way ? " 

A. — " I remember none of those cases. Further, I ask 
for the cases to be pointed out to me in which it is stated 
that I behaved in this way. Then I will answer in a manner 
that will leave no doubt. I remember only that Freteau, 
having been acquitted for a first offence, the Tribunal decided 
that he should be detained until the general peace. Fresh 
charges, not foreseen and not indicated on his first indict- 
ment, having been laid against him, he was again placed on 
trial and condemned on a fresh indictment." 

Q. — " Have you ever acceded to proposals that may have 
been made to you to allow yourself to be bribed by more or 
less considerable sums ? " 

A. — " I have always been faithful to my duty. Far from 
allowing myself to be bribed, I would not even have allowed 
such a proposal to be made to me. To ask me such a ques- 
tion is to crown the persecutions that I am made to suffer. 
My conduct has been always frank and loyal. I ask, further, 
that the names of the individuals be made known to me." 

Q. — " Do you intend to justify yourself, and from what do 
you claim that your justification will result ? " 

A. — " For that purpose I make use of the answers contained 
in the present examination and of the printed memorial which 
ought to have been delivered to each of the members of the 
Tribunal, together with the documents found at the time of 
the examination of my papers and taken away by the Com- 
mission, and other papers ; finally, of means of which I 
reserve to myself the time and place for turning to account." 

^ This was Lesenne, turnkey at the Luxembourg, who was arrested 
on the 19th of Messidor. He gave evidence at Fouquier's trial. 



AN APPEAL TO THE TRIBUNAL 2ir 

Q. — " Have you made choice of one or of several 
defenders ? " 

A. — " I choose Citizen Lafleuterie." 

Here Fouquier remarked that it ought not to escape the 
notice of the Tribunal that, as he had exercised the rigorous 
office of Public Prosecutor for seventeen months, individuals 
might come forward, moved by hatred and vengeance to- 
wards him, or on account of their own detention, or on 
account of the condemnation of their relatives or friends, 
to give evidence against him. For this reason he asked the 
justice of the Tribunal " to give all the attention of which 
it was capable to persons of this class, leaving it also to the 
loyalty of the Tribunal that the present examination should 
not be seen by any of the witnesses who were to be heard." 

The examination ended. The accused declared that he 
persisted in all his answers. He signed the official report 
together with Granges, the judge's deputy. Judge Forestier 
and Josse, the registrar, then signed.^ 

On the 4th of Frimaire (November 24) Fouquier was 
transferred from the Plessis prison to the Hospice de I'Eveche. ^ 
This fact seems to indicate that he was ill, exhausted by the 
struggle, by the emotions which his vigorous temperament 
had hitherto withstood, worn out by an extremely severe 
winter ^ and by the prison regimen. Witnesses at his trial 
declared that he was recognisable though very changed and 
grown thinner. He remained at the Hospice de I'Eveche 

^ Archives Nationales, W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 39. 

' L'Eveche was at the same time a prison and a hospital. As a 
prison it came under the Pubhc Prosecutor's jurisdiction and had 
been under Fouquier's orders. " The man whom the patients must 
have least expected to see appearing among them was assuredly 
Fouquier-Tinville, who, after having taken part in organising the 
Hospice, after having presided over it for a long time, was now in his 
turn imprisoned within it and remained there until the suppression of 
the establishment." We take this quotation from a very interesting 
monograph by M. Leon Legrand which appeared in the Revue des 
Questions Historiques, July, i8go, under the title of L' Hospice 
Nationale du Tribunal Revolutionnaire. 

3 A gendarme's report says, on the loth of Nivose, that seven per- 
sons crossing the Seine by the ice were engulfed. Aulard : Paris sous 
le Directoire, I., p. 351. 



212 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

until the 26th of Frimaire (December 16), on which date he 
was transferred to the Conciergerie in order to appear, twa 
days later, before the Tribunal. 

Carrier and the Revolutionary Committee of Nantes came 
up for trial on the 7th of Frimaire. On the 24th, at half- 
past ten, the pleadings in the Carrier trial closed. On the 
26th, at midnight. Carrier began his speech. He spoke 
from midnight until half-past four in the morning. He was 
condemned to death along with Pinard and Grandmaison.^ 
The other thirty accused persons were acquitted. The 
Carrier trial lasted sixty sittings. 

On the same day, the Tribunal, presided over by Dobsen, 
deUvered to Public Prosecutor Leblois an official certificate 
of the pleas for the prosecution which he had just drawn up 
against Fouquier-Tinville. 

This document comprised three propositions : ist, 
Fouquier-Tinville's crimes ; 2nd, Fouquier-Tinville's com- 
binations and objects ; 3rd, Fouquier-Tinville's character 
and moral behaviour. 

' ' Whether we endeavour to penetrate into his connections, 
his views, his object ; or whether we go further, and seek 
to know what were his manners, his habits, his moral 
behaviour, we see, and we could say it is already proved, 
that, in all these different aspects, Fouquier is criminal, 
mischievous, and merits punishment." 

In short, Leblois laid hold of and directed against Fouquier 
the charges of grouping together the accused persons and of 
placing them on trial in a mass after the law of the 22nd of 
Prairial. He accused him of being the criminal author of 
those hasty trials, thanks to which " accused persons have 
been condemned in appearance and really executed without 
there ever being against them either a valid verdict or sen- 
tence." He affirmed that he was responsible for the substi- 
tution of one accused person for another, and of having had 

^ Carrier died with courage. " He offered his hand with good 
grace to the executioner and mounted to the theatre of death with 
vivacity," says the Courier Republicain of the 27th of Frimaire. 
" Pinard was dying at the foot of the scaffold ; Grandmaison was 
weeping but did not appear to lack courage." [Ibid.) 



THE INDICTMENT AGAINST FOUQUIER 213 

the guillotine prepared and set up and the carts got ready in 
advance. He rebuked him for the blank sentence forms, and 
the eagerness, which Fouquier could have prevented, for 
depriving certain accused persons of the right to plead and 
thus leaving them without witnesses or defenders. He 
rebuked him for the Comte de Fleury's death. He insisted 
on the accusation that Fouquier had changed the jurors, 
and made a selection from them, that he had spoken to 
them and made them speak to him, that he had penetrated 
" furtively " into the room where they were deliberating, 
that he had jested in an atrocious fashion by calling them 
" firers of uninterrupted volleys," He influenced witnesses. 
He received them in his office ; he taught them what they 
were to say. He " exercised the most pronounced despotism 
over all the agents of the Tribunal, and especially over the 
secretaries of the prosecutor's office." He kept back docu- 
ments for the defence, and refused to deliver them to the 
defenders. He abstained from opening packets of docu- 
ments for the defence. He lied by implying and trying to 
make it believed that some accused persons when placed on 
trial had rebelled against the Tribunal and shown a lack of 
respect towards it.^ He lied by implying and trying to make 
it beUeved that there existed conspiracies in the prisons. 
" He acted thus in order to snatch the terrible law of the 
22nd of Prairial, which he boasted of obtaining, and of which, 
perhaps, he alone could have given the dangerous idea." He 
himself went to the prisons and the houses of detention. 
" He made it his task to have intercourse with those cowardly 
men whom one is always sure of finding inclined to injure 
others and to degrade themselves. He flattered them, 
caressed them, and influenced them to charge themselves 
with the very doubtful employment of common informers. 
. . . He established, between himself and them, a furtive, 
inquisitorial, sanguinary intercourse, based upon the lists of 
proscribed persons." 

" Inexorable and pitiless, the verdict which accidentally 
acquitted an accused person was to Fouquier-TinviUe the 
1 Danton and the Dantonists. 



214 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

object of a further display of rage and fury ; he almost 
always opposed, and that on his own authority alone, the 
execution of verdicts of acquittal, and if he were nevertheless 
forced to abstain from resisting them, he protested and 
threatened to recapture and sacrifice the victim ; this was 
especially the feeling he experienced towards, and the 
threat he made against, and the fate he reserved for, one of 
the former Parliamentarians whose ruin he had sworn.''^ 

Leblois charged Fouquier with having " strangely and in 
all ways proved false to every part and function of his office," 
with having been as greedy for blood as for money, with 
having kept the sums sent to the prisoners through him, 
with having illegally taken over various deposits, chattels, 
and sums of money, " since there was legally no other 
depository than the registrar of the Tribunal," and, either 
from forgetfulness or from fraudulent intention, with making 
no note or register of those objects, some of which have 
been cut up or lost, and which it is impossible to trace here. 

He charged him with having supported those " monsters," 
Robespierre, Saint- Just, Couthon, and others, " who had 
promised themselves to depopulate France and to cause 
to disappear all its genius, talents, honour, and industry." 
It will be demonstrated, said Leblois, ' ' that Fouquier paid 
them visits in the dead of night. "^ It will be demonstrated, 
he said also, " that they held orgies in private houses at the 
period when the conspiracy was discovered." 

In brief, "it is proved that Fouquier-Tinville made 
amusement and a sort of enjoyment out of the great numbers 
of those whom he placed on trial and who were condemned." 

Leblois accordingly charged his predecessor with having 
betrayed his office, with having conspired, as author or 
accomplice, against the internal security of the State and 
of the French people ; with having consequently and in 

^ Freteau (Emmanuel Marie Michel Philippe), a councillor of the 
Parlement of Paris, at first acquitted (27th of Floreal in the year II.), 
then placed again on trial and guillotined (26th of Prairial in the 
year II.). 

'^ These were the visits that Fouquier made to the Committee 
of Public Safety to which he went to give an account of his work. 



THE HEARING POSTPONED 215 

this manner provoked the dissolution of the national 
representation, the overthrow of the Republican system, 
the re-establishment of royalty, and with having sought 
to provoke, by murder and terror, the arming of citizens 
one against another, and with exciting civil war.^ 

Two days later, on the 28th of Frimaire (December 18), 
Lecointre (of Versailles) proposed in the Convention that 
those who were acquitted in the Carrier trial should be sent 
before a criminal Tribunal on a charge of ordinary crimes. 
A sharp discussion took place. Some representatives of the 
people declared that Revolutionary justice had been too 
long in the same hands. Bourdon (of the Oise) proposed 
that the Tribunal sitting at Paris should be renewed. The 
Convention decreed that this should be done. 

The usher of the Convention dehvered this decree to 
President Dobsen at the moment when Fouquier-Tinville 
was in the chair answering the questions of the judges and 
jurors. The President immediately prorogued the hearing. 
And Fouquier was led back to prison. Everything had to 
be begun again. During more than three months that 
he was imprisoned, " he was frightfully bored. "^ He was 
still to be incarcerated for four months and a half longer 
before " he mounted to the theatre of death. "^ 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 499, dossier 550, p. 7. 

" Fouquier's expression in one of his letters to his wife. 

3 An expression of the time, used of Carrier. 



CHAPTER X 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE'S second trial : THE INQUIRY BY THE 
TRIBUNAL ESTABLISHED ON THE 8tH OF NIVOSE IN THE 
YEAR III 

ON the 8th of Nivose in the year III. (December 28, 
1794), the National Convention voted the re- 
organisation of the Revolutionary Tribunal, pro- 
posed by Merlin (of Douai). This law was put 
into effect a month later. The magistrates who composed 
the new Tribunal came from the provinces. Their duties 
at Paris were not to last more than three months. ^ 

The first session was held in the Hall of Liberty on the 
8th of Pluviose in the year HI. Aumont^ dehvered a speech 
of the historic type, in which he called to mind Brutus pro- 
claiming the liberty of Rome over the ruins of the overturned 
throne of the Tarquins, but avoiding the shedding of innocent 
blood on the scaffold. He also evoked Sulla and Octavius, 
and of Rome placed in chains. He hailed the dawn of a happy 
time of justice. The new Tribunal would be revolutionary 
and Repubhcan but just. 

" When the sight of crime and the sad necessity of letting 
the sword of the law fall upon guilty heads will come to 
sadden our hearts, keep in sight the assurance of a not far 
distant future. . , . Behold France more powerful 
and more respected than Rome and Sparta, more intellectual 
than Athens, more opulent than Carthage ; above all, 
happier than those famous republics, because she will have 

1 Campardon : Le Tribunal Revolutionnaive, II., p. 132. 

* Aumont, a commissioner for the Administration of Civil Affairs, 
Police, and Tribunals, became head of the legal and consulting ofiS.ce 
in the general police department, and afterwards until the year VII, 
was head of the detective department. We find no indication of him 
in the year IX. 

216 



FOUQUIER'S SECOND TRIAL 217 

more virtue, and will gaze upon the spectacle of her happiness 
in preparing the liberty and welfare of the world. "^ 

President Agier^ then said that he and his colleagues 
*' ascended with fright into a tribunal of blood which 
recently, whilst striking as by chance at some guilty heads, 
had sent thousands of innocent victims to death." 

" Priests of justice," he went on, " we have sacrificed 
ourselves to the public good ; before being the sacrificers, 
we become so to speak the victims ; let us obey, since we 
must, and not being able to have the merit of refusing, 
let us at least possess that of resignation. If we have to 
pass rigorous judgments, it is not to us that they can be 
imputed, but solely to the Law, of which we shall be, in all 
the severity of the term, interpreters by compulsion ; 
we are really responsible only for our zeal ; and conscience 
tells us that it could not be purer." 

The prisoners to be tried by this Tribunal, estabUshed 
on the 8th of Nivose in the year III., did not employ language 
different from that of their accusers. They also declared 
that they had obeyed. They also said that they could not 
refuse. They also entrenched themselves within the formula 
of the Law. They also maintained that they had only 
interpreted it. They also affirmed that they had behaved 
with exactitude, with rigorous zeal, that they had been 
bound to act thus, and were the victims of duty. 

Only, it ought to be noticed how the times had changed. 
The duties of the members of the Tribunal which was re- 
fashioned on the 8th of Nivose could be performed without 
danger and without risk. They were even not without profit. 
The other duties, those of the members of the Tribunal 
established on March 10, 1793, and on the 22nd of Prairial, 
1794, brought them to the scaffold. But the judges of the 
Terror had sent to death, between April 6, 1793, and the 
22nd of Prairial, 1794, one thousand two hundred and 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 532, reg. 5. 

' Agier, formerly an advocate in the Parlement of Paris and a 
substitute Deputy for Paris in the States-General. A judge in the 
Tribunal for the Second Arrondissement, he resigned after August 
10 and only entered upon his functions after the 9th of Thermidor. 



2i8 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

fifty-nine accused persons, and, between the 22nd of Prairial 
and the 9th of Thermidor, one thousand three hundred and 
sixty-six, or altogether two thousand six hundred and 
twenty-five victims in the space of sixteen months ; while 
the judges of the Tribunal established in Nivose of the year 
in. pronounced only seventeen death sentences — those of 
Fouquier-Tinville, fifteen of those charged along with him, 
and a woman, Marie Therese Marchal Jacquet, found guilty 
of corresponding with the enemies of the Republic. 

On the 12th of Ventose in the year III. (March 2, 
1795), the preliminaries of Fouquier's trial began again on 
a wider basis and with new sources of information. A larger 
number of witnesses was heard — registrars and clerks of the 
Tribunal established on March 10, 1793, employees in the 
prosecutor's office, ushers, Fouquier's secretaries, coachmen 
of the Tribunal, gendarmes, lawyers, official defenders, 
attendants in the refreshment-room, police officials, wine- 
sellers, employees in the prisons, turnkeys, the executioner, 
the executioner's assistants, ex-prison spies, persons who 
had been accused but had escaped the penalties of the 
Tribunal, all those, in a word, who had lived the life of the 
Revolutionary Tribunal during sixteen months, and some 
persons who, in spite of the Tribunal, were still alive. 

We have analysed these depositions from the originals, 
preserved among the Archives, made before Charles Francois 
Joseph Pissis, Judge of the Revolutionary Tribunal, a com- 
missioner appointed by an order issued on the 12th of 
Ventose in the year III., and signed by Vice-President 
Liger. 

In these long depositions, so curious and so interesting, 
in these examinations signed by the investigating judge 
and by each of the witnesses, the living history of the trial 
is revealed. It is the life of the Tribunal of the Terror, 
Fouquier's existence during sixteen months, which lives 
again in those large pages covered with the close handwriting 
of the registrars who alternately held the pen. To reproduce 
in extenso these testimonies would be impossible ; their 
prolixity and repetitions would exhaust the reader's atten- 



FIRST WITNESSES 219 

tion. We have accordingly summarised them without 
omitting anything essential. We hope that the reading 
of this summary (in which the details, collected and noted 
from life, are specified and particularised) will give the 
reader all the interest we ourselves have derived from reading 
the depositions in the original documents, and from trans- 
scribing and summarising them. 

The first witness whom Judge Pissis examined on that 
1 2th of Ventose in the year III. was a young woman of 
twenty-two years of age who had escaped from the guillotine 
by a miracle — Amelie Laurence Marie Celeste Saint-Pern, 
the widow of Cornulier,^ born at Rennes in the Ile-et-Vilaine, 
and residing in Paris, at the Rue du Sentier, Brutus Section. 

She declared that on the ist of Thermidor in the year II. 
she appeared before the Revolutionary Tribunal along with 
her husband, brother, grandfather, mother, and her two 
uncles. She and her husband were condemned to death. 
There was, to her knowledge, no writ of indictment against 
them, and no legal documents. They had been handed a writ 
of indictment at the door of the audience-chamber. She 
escaped death only by declaring herself pregnant. During 
the hearing of the case, she was only asked her name, her 
age, rank, and residence. No witness was called either for 
the prosecution or for the defence. She wanted to speak 
on her own behalf. The President ordered two gendarmes 
to separate her from her husband and to take her to the end 
of the bench on which the prisoners sat, so that she could not 
speak to him. 

Before the hearing, when the names of the accused were 
called over at the Conciergerie, neither she nor her husband 
had been called, for they were not on the list, and had 
received no writ of indictment. The bearer of the list, 
so Madame Cornulier deposed, immediately came back 
and said : " It is required that they appear at the hearing 
to-day, and they are not included in the list nor in the writ 
of indictment." He sent for one. M. Cornulier refused 
to take his place on the benches until he was shown a writ 
^She signs herself thus. 



220 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

of indictment in which his name was included. One was 
brought to them immediately. Their names were included 
in it. It was handed to them at the entrance to the audience- 
chamber. Her brother, Bertrand Jean Marie Saint-Pern, 
aged seventeen, was condemned the same day on a writ of 
mdictment made out against his father aged fifty-three. 

" They were named in it," says the witness, " under this 
form, Saint-Pern and his wife, son-in-law and daughter 
of Magon de la Balue," a description that only fitted her 
father and his wife, and could not be adapted to her young 
brother.^ 

The public executioner's assistant, Pierre Francois 
Etienne Desmorest, who had already given evidence at the 
first inquiry, that held in Brumaire, repeated what he knew 
concerning Fouquier. He had had " no special connection 
with him." One day Fouquier complained to him that the 
executions took place too late. He told him to come to 
him for orders. Desmorest went every morning. As a 
rule, Fouquier would say to him at eleven or twelve o'clock : 
" The guillotine must be set up for two o'clock or half -past 
two. So many vehicles must be procured." 

One day he told him that ten or eleven were needed. 
He never thought there were enough vehicles because he 
wished there to be only seven or eight condemned persons 
in each of them.^ Still, one day it was necessary to put as 
many as ten in each vehicle. When the sentences were 
passed, Desmorest would go and find the usher who was to 
be present at the execution, and who had the Ust of con- 
demned persons with Fouquier' s order. Desmorest used to 
go with this usher to the Conciergerie, where the janitor 
" would deliver over to them the condemned persons, whom 
it was not necessary to summon because they were usually 
enclosed in an apartment separated from the other prisoners 
and guarded by gendarmes." He would count them, with 
the list in his hand. The condemned persons were deprived 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 45 his, folio i. 
» We have seen that he had received formal orders from the Com- 
mittees on this matter. 



CONVICTIONS ANTICIPATED 221 

of their property before being handed over to the executioner. 
By a resolution of the Convention, their clothing was taken 
to the Hospital of the Revolutionary Tribunal. He did 
not know what became of it. 

At the end of his evidence, Desmorest remembered that 
the day when Fouquier asked for ten or eleven vehicles 
was the loth of Thermidor, and it was for the execution of 
the seventy-one members of the Commune of Paris who had 
been outlawed. " He received this order in Fouquier's own 
house." 

Etienne Simonnet, usher of the Tribunal, aged 66, declared 
that he was too much occupied with the discharge of his 
duties to notice Fouquier's threats and outbursts in the 
registrar's office. He only knew two or three facts. One 
day Fouquier had changed several of the jurors on the list 
of those who were summoned. Several times Simonnet 
received " imperfect " writs of indictment from the prose- 
cutor's office ; in some of those writs the names of the 
accused persons did not appear, " so that the names were only 
given as they were asked for at the prosecutor's office." 
On another day, about the 22nd of Prairial, Simonnet heard 
him say " that he would have all those scoundrels of con- 
spirators exterminated, that he had orders to that effect from 
the Committees." One morning, he saw in the courtyard of 
the Sainte-Chapelle, before the trial, a certain number of carts 
which seemed " intended to carry those who were to be 
condemned."^ 

Gabriel Jerome Senar, aged 35, a lawyer, residing at Tours, 
but at the time detained in the Hospice de I'Eveche, declared 
that he had " much knowledge useful for the decision of the 
case of Fouquier-Tinville through his connection, interviews 
and correspondence with him." 

But it must be confessed that Senar's evidence is highly 
suspicious. Senar had been an agent of the Committee of 
General Security. He had been president of a military 
revolutionary committee established at Tours ; he had been 
national agent of the Commune of Tours. He was at once a 

* Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 45 his, folios 2 and 3. 



222 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

gendarme and an informer by profession. He knew well 
that his evidence could be stamped as inadmissible, since, 
on the first occasion when questioned, he had asked whether 
' ' a man covered with suspicion could be heard as a witness, 
and his depositions brought forward when his name was 
dishonoured in public opinion." He took advantage of this 
to solicit the new Tribunal to be good enough " to indict 
or to judge him, as, for eight months, he could obtain no 
decision nor even a statement of the charges against him." 

Senar said that, having come from Tours to Paris by 
order of the Committee, ' ' he made the unlucky acquaintance 
of Heron, the principal agent of the Committee of General 
Security, who got hold of him." Heron took him to Fou- 
quier-Tinville, " who appeared to be very closely associated 
with him." Fouquier received Heron in these terms : 
" Our business is going well. Heads are falling like slates." 
They afterwards spoke of Santerre, who had been arrested. 
Senar was a commissioner in that affair. After a discus- 
sion of the official report regarding Santerre, Fouquier- 
Tinville answered : — " What does it matter to me whether 
you are a patriot or not ? When the Committee of Public 
Safety tells me to have any one guillotined, I do it. . . 
Once more, I am only a passive being, obhged to make those 
persons perish whom Robespierre names. In this case I 
obey the Committee of Public Safety, I agree. It is dis- 
pleasing to me, on your account, if, through the rivalry of the 
two Committees, Santerre has been kept in prison too long. 
I shall make him take his place on my little bench, and you 
will dance the Carmagnole there." 

Senar : " Ought the Revolution to assassinate, and ought 
we not to have justice ? " 

Fouquier : " It is only counter-revolutionaries and knaves 
who ask for justice. Ask Heron how we work the heads. 
In Revolution you must not stop at these trifles." 

Some moments afterwards Senar heard Heron say to 
Fouquier : " Good, good, my friend. Cut off their heads. 
That is the way to enrich the Repubhc." After this they 
separated. 



THE INDULGENT FACTION 223 

One day, having business at Fouquier's office, to deliver 
to him documents by order of the Committee of General 
Security, he spoke to the PubHc Prosecutor in favour of the 
Revolutionary Committee of Bourgueil, and begged him not 
to put them on trial immediately, although they were at 
the Conciergerie. Fouquier answered him : " This is how 
it is. When one wants to carry terror into the country dis- 
tricts, to maintain the Revolution by fear, one finds these 
gentlemen of the Indulgent Faction who cry out, and our 
measure would fail if we listened to them. This is good 
business. There are rich people in it, for when they entered 
the Conciergerie plenty of money was taken from them." 

At another time, in regard to the trial of this case, Fouquier 
said to him : " I have so much to do that I forget what I am 
saying or what is suggested to me." 

The members of the Bourgueil Committee were given their 
liberty, thanks to a reprieve. 

Senar, having notified to Fouquier a resolution passed 
by the Committee of General Security giving them hberty, 
the Public Prosecutor exclaimed : " It is always the same ! 
Another case of liberty given by the Committee of General 
Security ! But I cannot accede to it because, according to 
the law of the 22nd of Prairial, the Tribunal cannot set at 
liberty without the consent of the Committee of Public 
Safety." In spite of Senar's observations, he persisted in his 
refusal. Senar then withdrew. As he was leaving, he met 
Amar, the Deputy, who told him to wait for him, so that they 
might go away together in the carriage belonging to the 
Committee of General Security. 

Fouquier reappeared and was stopped by a citizen, who 
said to him : " How many vehicles will be wanted to- 
day ? " 

Fouquier counted on his fingers : " Eight, twelve, eighteen, 
thirty. Count on thirty." 

The other, who was " attached to the public executioner," 
withdrew. Fouquier perceived Senar, and said to him : 
** What are you waiting here f or ? " 

" I am waiting for Amar, the Representative of the people. 



224 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

with whom I am to go away in the carriage ; I am tired, and 
all the more so on account of the fright your answer has just 
caused me. You know the number of the condemned and 
their case is not yet heard ! They have not and cannot be 
tried by this time, for it is too early in the day." 

" Bah 1 " answered Fouquier, " I know what to think." 

He left him abruptly with the words : " You are not good 
revolutionaries, you formalists ! " 

Another evening, at the office of the prosecutor's secre- 
taries, where Senar was making out an analytical inventory 
of the documents which he was to deliver, Fouquier came in 
and said : " You are very much afraid, Mr. Formalist. You 
are going as much into detail as if you were drawing up an 
inventory to be exhibited in court." 

Heron ^ was there. Fouquier required Senar to be briefer, 
and pressed him to end his work. He sent the secretary away. 
It was late. It was necessary to go to the Committee of 
Public Safety. Fouquier asked for two gendarmes. They 
went out, the gendarmes following some paces behind. 
Senar walked with Heron and Fouquier. As they went, 
Heron and Fouquier " conversed of the victories won by the 
guillotine." Fouquier said : "I am pleased with its suc- 
cesses ; but there are people who, although renowned patriots, 
have gone through it. Others also will go through it, and 
I am afraid that it may play a trick on me. I have seen the 
ghosts of some patriots. For some time it has seemed to me 
that those ghosts are following me. How will all this end ? 
I do not know." 

Senar answered : " When a suspected person is charged, 
the Public Prosecutor should himself judge of the charge in 
his own conscience. By an exact and scrupulous summary, 
he ought to place the jurors in a position not to be deceived. 
If he is forced to do the contrary, he ought to resign." 

Senar affirmed that he said this. Heron silenced him. 

" You are a chatterer. Fouquier ought not to take advice 

^ See in the first series of M. Lenotre's Vieilles Maisons, Vieux 
Papiers, the article entitled Two Police Officials (Heron and Dosson- 
ville). 



THE TIMOROUS SENAR 325 

from a greenhorn. A few skulls like yours would be enough 
to ruin the revolution." 

And Fouquier said : " Yes, I perceive that this fellow is 
not a revolutionary. We should do fine things if we took 
precautions." 

They were then going through the door of the Louvre. 
Three ill-clad men seemed to be hiding there. When 
they heard the footsteps of the gendarmes, and saw the 
three others, they went away. Fouquier said to Heron : 
" My good friend, we shall not profit by our revolutionary 
labours. We shall be assassinated." 

Heron repHed : " What matter ? Between now and 
then we shall make an end of some of them. Do not be 
uneasy. Whatever impediments I encounter at the Com- 
mittee of General Security — and they sometimes unsettle 
my plans — I shall none the less deal with them as we have 
agreed, and we shall have more heads." 

Fouquier rejoined : " You must be silent in the presence 
of Indulgents." 

This was intended for Senar. 

" Good," answered Heron, " if he commit the least indis- 
cretion, I shall soon master him." 

At the entrance to the courtyard of the Tuileries, they 
withdrew a little from him. Senar was less able to hear what 
they said. He only heard Fouquier's voice and these words 
spoken by him : " We shall always be in agreement, and 
shall make them dance the Carmagnole." 

Heron then rejoined Senar. They went to the Committee 
of General Security. The timorous Senar unbosomed himself 
to Amar, the Deputy. He told him that Heron had a 
grudge against him and why. Amar reassured him : "Be 
calm, the Committee knows you. I will see that nothing is 
done to you. If you were arrested again, you would not be 
brought before the Tribunal without being heard. A 
resolution will be passed that will send you back home."^ 
Senar breathed again. 

Charles Louis Perdry, aged 37, of No. 492 Rue Neuve-des- 
1 Archives Nationales, W. 500, p. 45 bis, folios 4 to 7. 



226 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

Petits-Champs, judge of the Tribunal of the Second Arron- 
dissement of Paris, a compatriot of Fouquier, knew him before 
the Revolution. " Their families had intermarried." He 
had been a director with him of the jury of the Tribunal 
estabhshed on August 17, 1792. He had seen him less often 
since he was appointed deputy and then Public Prosecutor. 
He was present at certain sessions of the Revolutionary 
Tribunal. " They filled him with sorrow." 

He was not able to remain for long, as he was " moved 
at seeing on the benches for the accused and perhaps in the 
midst of those who were guilty, men clothed with public 
confidence." He had been a prisoner in the Plessis prison. 
Terror ruled there. The prisoners were afraid to speak 
to one another. He had never been able to conceive " how 
any one had the effrontery to maintain that there were 
conspiracies in the prisons." 

Anne Marguerite Devilliers, the wife of Morisan, aged 50, 
residing in the Palace, at the Cafe des Subsistances, kept the 
refreshment-room of the Tribunal. Fouquier frequently 
came there to eat. He often waited there in the evening 
until the Committees of Public Safety and of General Security 
were open for him to go to them. She several times heard 
Fouquier complain that he carried on a cruel trade, saying 
that he would prefer to be a labourer. He used to ask : 
" Were there many people present at the executions ? " 

When they told him that there had been a crowd, Fouquier 
would answer with a shrug of his shoulders : "It is fright- 
ful ! " Sometimes he dined alone ; on other occasions with 
certain jurors and certain judges. 

She was sometimes present at the hearings, before the 
22nd of Prairial. She saw Fouquier cross-examining the 
accused. They could answer him freely. She heard Fou- 
quier say to the President : " Put such and such a question 
to the accused, and let them answer." 

After the law of the 22nd of Prairial, she heard Fouquier, 
who was dining in the refreshment-room, say : " The times 
are very cruel. It cannot last." 

He complained bitterly of President Dumas. On the 



A WRETCHED TRADE 227 

9th of Thermidor he did not dine with her. He returned 
to the Tribunal about six o'clock in the evening. He came 
down to the refreshment-room about eight or nine o'clock, 
and said : " I do not know what is taking place or what 
it means." 

He sent Malarme, one of the secretaries of the prosecutor's 
office, to get information. Citizen Botot-Dumesnil, an officer 
of police, sent out some men. Fouquier said : "As for 
me, I remain at my post, were I to perish there. I fear 
nothing." 

He remained there, in fact, until one o'clock in the 
morning. He then went out, saying : "I am going to the 
Committee." 

Madeline Nicole Sophie Morisan, aged 20, residing with 
her father, a restaurant keeper, at the Cafe des Subsistances, 
in the Palace, had seen Fouquier-Tinville several times 
at her father's, as he came to eat there at five o'clock in 
the evening. He often sat alone, but sometimes with 
judges and jurors of the Tribunal. People came to give 
him an account of the executions that had taken place. 
He would ask the usher if there had been many people 
there. On the usher's affirmative, he would shrug his 
shoulders, saying : " When will this end ? What a wretched 
trade ! I would prefer to go and labour in the fields." 

She sometimes went to the sessions of the Tribunal. 
She saw Dumas preventing the accused from defending 
themselves. Fouquier said to the President : " Let the 
accused persons speak." 

On the gth of Thermidor, Fouquier did not dine in the 
refreshment -room. She saw him in his own rooms, about 
six o'clock in the evening, with his wife. About half-past 
eight or nine, Fouquier came to the refreshment-room to 
drink a bottle of beer, "as he usually did in the evening." 
He asked Botot-Dumesnil what was happening. He 
remained until eleven o'clock at night and returned to the 
refreshment-room at two o'clock in the morning. He then 
went to bed. She heard " no conversation of Fouquier's 
at that time because she herself was asleep." 



228 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

Of Dumas, he used to say : " He is a beggar who cannot 
last long." She never heard Fouquier speak in her presence 
of the conspiracies in the prisons. 

Charles Gombert Bertrand, aged 41, a former janitor at 
the Luxembourg/ had had no intercourse with Fouquier- 
Tinville. He saw him at the Tribunal. After the law of the 
22nd of Prairial, he heard Fouquier, in his capacity of 
Public Prosecutor, cross-examining the accused. He let 
them answer freely. 

Armand Martial Joseph Herman, aged about 36, residing 
at No. 19, Place des Piques, the ex-President of the Revo- 
lutionary Tribunal, who had presided over the trial of Marie 
Antoinette and at the Danton case, declared that " all the 
deeds with which Fouquier was charged being subsequent 
to his own departure from the Tribunal, he could give no 
information in regard to them." While he was President 
of the Revolutionary Tribunal, no complaint or no informa- 
tion against Fouquier reached him. " He would have been 
very pleased if there had been a little more order in his 
work," but he knew no fact which could be imputed to him 
as a crime, no betrayal of his functions. 

As to the conspiracy in the prisons, he only knew it as 
Commissioner for the Administration of Civil Affairs, 
Police, and Tribunals.^ He had had to make inquiries 
on the subject of that conspiracy. He believed that 
Fouquier accompanied Citizen Lanne ^ once or twice on his 
visits of inquiry to the prisons. He could not say in what 
manner those inquiries were made. " He liked to think 
that those two functionaries carried out their duty in this 
respect." He, Herman, said that he had never been in the 
prisons. 

Joseph Verney, aged 28, residing at No. 311, Rue Geoffroy- 
r Angevin, Section de la Reunion, had been a basketmaker in 
1790, 1791, and 1792. After August 3rd, 1793, he became a 

> He had not been janitor since the i8th of Thermidor. 
" A post to which he was appointed after the condemnation of the 
Dantonists. 

' Herman's assistant. 



THE PRISONERS OF BICETRE 229 

turnkey at the Luxembourg. Since then he had performed 
the duties of janitor at Saint-Lazare until the 28th of 
Thermidor. He said that he had no intercourse with 
Fouquier-Tinville.i When he was at the Luxembourg, 
he saw only once, on the night between the i8th and 19th 
of Messidor, a list brought by an usher. This list contained 
the names of more than a hundred " individuals " who were 
transferred to the Conciergerie. It was signed " Fouquier," 
and bore the seal of the Tribunal. Those who were on the 
list did not appear again at the Luxembourg, with the 
exception of nine or ten who were acquitted. 

Joseph Honore Vonschriltz,^ aged 28, residing at Paris, 
in the Place and Section des Droits de 1' Homme, a police 
inspector for the past year, and a carpenter before the 
Revolution, saw Fouquier-Tinville only once when he came 
to BicStre accompanied by a detachment of gendarmes on 
foot, and several vehicles to take away the prisoners who 
were summoned to the Conciergerie and executed the day 
following, " with the exception of four or six who assisted 
as witnesses," ^ and were brought back to Bicetre. The 
others were executed as accomplices in, or authors of, a 
conspiracy hatched at Bicetre. However, Vonschriltz 
had noticed " no trace of conspiracy " in that house. He 
saw nothing but submission among the prisoners. Dupont, 
the police official whose rigour made the prisoners groan, 
had, along with Fouquier, caused a table to be placed in the 
courtyard. They had a list of those whom they wanted to 
enter their vehicles. Fouquier took them away.^ 

Pierre Nicolas Vergne, aged 36, secretary and justice of 
the peace of the Lepelletier Section, and afterwards member 
of the Revolutionary Committee of that section, residing at 

1 This is contradicted by the facts. A document exists (Archives 
Nationales, W. 500, 2nd dossier, p. 28) which is nothing else than the 
information laid by Verney against twenty prisoners in the Luxem- 
bourg, written in Fouquier's hand, and approved of and signed by 
Verney. 

» This is how he signed himself. 

* Police spies. See Chapter III. 

* Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 45 bis, folios 7 to 12. 



230 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

No. 7, Rue Favart, never had an5rtliing in particular to do 
with Fouquier-Tinville. 

He knew him as Public Prosecutor. He had sometimes 
been present at the hearings of the Revolutionary Tribunal. 
He never saw Fouquier sitting at them. He used to bring 
him, as member of the Revolutionary Committee, documents 
for the prosecution or for the defence of indicted persons. 
Fouquier handed them over to a clerk who counted them. 
Vergne made him give a receipt for them. On a single 
occasion he dined with Fouquier, whom he did not yet 
know. It was about the month of June, 1793, on a Sunday 
when all the constituted authorities of Paris had gone 
to the Convention. There were seven or eight persons at 
that dinner, " among others Montane, then President of 
the Tribunal ; Paris, the registrar ; and Chretien, a juror." 
There was no reference made to anything in particular. 

The judge asked Vergne if he had no private conversation 
with Fouquier at the time of the attempt on CoUot d'Herbois 
by Admiral. 

" What idea had you of that affair, and what idea had 
Fouquier of it ? " 

" On that day, about six or seven o'clock in the morning. 
Admiral was examined. Accompanied by Chretien, the 
juror, and another member of the Revolutionary Committee 
of the Section, I went to take Fouquier the declarations of 
those who were present at the moment of Admiral's attempt, 
as well as Admiral's replies. We found Fouquier in bed. 
We handed him the documents. Fouquier asked us if we 
did not beheve this attempt was ' the result of a more 
extensive plot.' We answered that we did not think so." 
Vergne, although summoned, was not heard as a witness 
in that case. 

Pierre Joseph Boyaval,^ aged 26, detained in the Hospice 
National, a tailor, and before his arrest a lieutenant of light 
infantry, detained since the 20th of Brumaire in the year II., 
first in the Luxembourg, then in Sainte-Pelagie and the 
Plessis, and lastly in the Hospice, was an old habitue of the 
^ He signs thus. 



A PRISON SPY 231 

prisons of the Terror. But he had not suffered much from 
this. We have seen that he served as a prison spy. 

He declared that on the 19th of Messidor, Fouquier, as 
Pubhc Prosecutor, sent him to the Luxembourg to make 
inquiries together with Beausire, Armance, Vauchelet, 
Juhen, Meunier, Lenain, Boispereuse, and Benoit.^ Fouquier 
asked him his name, and said to him : " You are going to 
appear at the Revolutionary Tribunal. You must speak 
in the way you know." 

Then he was sent back. On the 21st of the same month, 
Fouquier sent for the witnesses. He went to the Public 
Prosecutor's room, accompanied by a gendarme. He 
handed him the letter which a prisoner in the Luxembourg 
had entrusted to him. He had no conversation with him. 
On the same day, a little later, he asked to speak again with 
Fouquier. A gendarme accompanied him. Fouquier made 
him wait for an hour in a corridor. When the Prosecutor, 
who had been conversing with Cofhnhal, was free, Boyaval 
asked permission to go and dine with his relatives, under 
the guard of a gendarme. Fouquier refused. 

On the 22nd of Messidor, Fouquier sent him again to 
inquire, always with the same witnesses. But he did not 
speak to him. Boyaval had since written many letters to 
Fouquier " to denounce " to him facts relating to a con- 
spiracy of 300 prisoners, "on the first floor of the Luxem- 
bourg." He never received a reply, ^ 

Antoine Vauchelet, aged 32, a merchant in Paris, at No. 2, 
Rue du Gros-Chenet, Section Brutus, had never known 
Fouquier. But Vauchelet, like Boyaval, was an habitue 
of the prisons. Like Boyaval he had rendered services. 
He, too, was a police spy. During his detention in the 
Luxembourg, which lasted from September 9th, 1793, to the 
27th of Thermidor following, he " thought he noticed that 
Verney, turnkey in the house of detention, had intercourse 
with Fouquier." He boasted of going to see him. Boyaval 
had said to him, Vauchelet, that there were still many 

1 Other police spies. 

* Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 45 bis, folios 12 to 16. 



232 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

conspirators, a list of whom Fouquier had asked of 
him. 

On the 19th of Messidor, when summoned as a witness 
to the Tribunal, he had seen Boyaval going into Fouquier's 
room. On the same day he saw, " with astonishment," 
among the accused persons, a certain Morin,^ who had 
reached the Conciergerie two days before and been brought 
before the Tribunal as the result of an error in the names. 
This Morin made a remark about it to Fouquier, who 
answered " that in truth Morin was not the man he sought, but 
that he held him and would keep him." At that moment 
" the true Morin," he whom they sought, made his appear- 
ance. Fouquier had him placed among the accused per- 
sons, "entered verbal pleading against him at the hearing, 
without any other writ of indictment being delivered to the 
accused man, who was condemned with the rest." The 
first Morin withdrew from the Court, but was again placed 
on trial the next day, and condemned like his namesake. 

Vauchelet was anxious to place on Verney and Boyaval 
all responsibility for the " denunciations " made to Fouquier, 
and instigated by the Pubhc Prosecutor. He said that 
Fouquier "used to keep Boyaval back " and remain in 
secret conversation with him. But Boyaval denied that he 
had private conversations with Fouquier. 

Which of these two wretches are we to beheve, both of 
them ready for anything, and seeking by accusing others 
to extricate themselves from a difficult position ? 

Vauchelet affirmed that, being summoned a second time 
as a witness, on a day when Fouquier was not at the hearing 
of the case, all the witnesses were heard. " Six of the 
witnesses," he says, " of whom I was one, spoke in favour 
of fourteen or fifteen accused persons, and defended them 
with heat." Eleven were acquitted out of forty-five. 
A juror (whom he did not know) remarked to him that he 
ought to recapitulate and point out the accomplices in the 
Grammont Conspiracy. 

Pierre Marie BUgny, Fouquier's successor as procurator at 
1 See Chapter III., p. 86. 



A CRUEL CHANGE 233 

the Chatelet, residing at No. 297 Rue Neuve-Egalite, Section 
Bonne-Nouvelle, declared that he knew Citizen Fouquier 
in September, 1783, " a period when he negotiated the sale 
of a procurator's office and practice in the former Ch?.telet, 
which Fouquier held ; that motives of interest placed 
him in a position not to see Fouquier for more than ten years ; 
that the position of Public Prosecutor at the Tribunal of 
the Department necessitated the witness seeing Fou- 
quier in regard to a matter in which he was counsel." 
He saw him several times in his capacity as defender when 
Fouquier was Public Prosecutor of the Revolutionary 
Tribunal. He spoke to him only about the cases 
with which he was entrusted, and about nothing else. 
He declared that he had no knowledge of the conspiracies 
in the prisons, nor of " what was called firing an uninter- 
rupted volley," as he had no cases at the Revolutionary 
Tribunal for about a year. 

Pierre Athanase Pepin Degrouhette,^ aged 43, a lawyer, 
an official defender, President of the Tribunal established 
on August 17th, 1792, residing in Paris at No, 25 Rue du 
Sentier, Section Brutus, knew Fouquier in September, 1792, 
as director of the jury d' accusation, of which he, Pepin, was 
one of the presidents. He lost sight of him and found him 
again at the Revolutionary Tribunal. Pepin-Degrouhette 
used to defend accused persons. 

During the first six or seven months of the existence 
of the Revolutionary Tribunal, he found Fouquier " very 
accessible to the complaints of unfortunate persons, very 
easy in granting the delays necessary for preparing the 
defence of the accused, for fetching documents and witnesses 
for the defence." But towards the end of 1793 and in the 
first months of the year H., " things changed cruelly." 
Fouquier " became unapproachable." The days when the 
accused were to appear in court were concealed from the 
defenders. The indictments were served on the evening 
before the trial, and sometimes late at night. The unhappy 
prisoners often went into the dock without their defenders 
1 He signs thus. 



234 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

and without their evidence. Pepin-Degrouhette complained 
vehemently of this to Fouquier. The latter burst out 
angrily and said on different occasions : " I can do nothing 
about it. My hand is forced." 

On the 2nd of Floreal in the year 11., Pepin was arrested 
and taken to Saint-Lazare, His wife went the next day 
to find Fouquier and beg him not to bring to trial the accused 
persons whom her husband was commissioned to defend. 
Fouquier received her very brutally, and said " that he would 
not stop the course of justice for her husband." Several 
citizens were, in fact, tried and condemned whilst the evi- 
dence was under seals alhxed at Pepin-Degrouhette's house. 

In the case of the Saint-Lazare conspiracy, which occupied 
the court for three days, Fouquier only sat on the first day. 
He appeared to be less immerciful than Liendon who sat 
on the other two days.^ 

Jean Henry VouUand, aged 43, Representative of the 
people residing at No. 108, Rue Croix-des-Petits-Champs, 
had no association with Fouquier except such as he might 
have in his capacity as member of the Committee of General 
Security. He could give no evidence for the prosecution 
or the defence. ^ 

Another Deputy, Andre Amar, aged 38, representing the 
Department of the Is^re, and a member of the Committee 
of General Security, could not say whether Fouquier held 
private intercourse with Robespierre. He strongly sus- 
pected that Maximilien had a good deal of influence over 
Fouquier, Cofiinhal, and Dumas, and more particularly 
over the last two than over Fouquier. He remembered 
seeing at the Committee of General Security an information 
in which Fouquier was accused of having dined on the 9th 
of Thermidor with Cofhnhal and Dumas. ^ This information 
was sent to the Tribunal with all the documents for 
Fouquier's prosecution. He knew nothing more. 

Claude Emmanuel Dobsen, aged 53, twice President 

^ Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 45 bis, folios 16 to 18. 
" Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 45 ter, folio i. 
* This is true as regards Co£&nhal, but false concerning Dumas, 
as he had just been arrested on that day. (See Chapter IV.) 



A MOCKERY 235 

of the Revolutionary Tribunal, residing at No. 7 a Rue du 
Cloitre-Notre-Dame, Section de la Cite, had been Fouquier's 
colleague as director of the jury d'accusation. Appointed 
President of the Revolutionary Tribunal in place of Mon- 
tane, " he had the most intimate intercourse with Fouquier." 
He never " noticed anything in him contrary to the princi- 
ples of the strictest justice." Dobsen only left the Tribunal 
in virtue of the decree of the 22nd of Prairial which did not 
re-elect him. 

When Herman, the President, was appointed Minister 
of the Interior, Dumas " President in Chief," and Scellier 
and Coffinhal Vice-Presidents, from that moment the form 
of the proceedings changed. It seemed to Dobsen that 
Dumas directed all the operations. He heard him complain 
several times of Fouquier-Tinville and of the fact that he 
did not " place a greater number of people on trial at once." 
Since the 22nd of Prairial he sometimes frequented the 
Tribunal. He saw with horror almost all the accused 
persons tried without having any facilities for bringing 
forward their defence. He even saw a large number tried, 
in regard to whom this was confined to asking them their 
names and conditions. The pleadings were then closed, 
the questions put to the jury, and condemnation pronounced. 
Several times, when he came to the Palace, before the 
hearing had even begun, he saw, collected in the courtyard, 
vehicles intended to take the condemned to the scaffold.* 

Denis Michel Jullien, aged 30, merchant, residing at 
No. 12, Quai de Chaillot, Section des Champs-Elysees, 
gave evidence similar to that of Vauchelet. It was the story 
of the conspiracy in the prisons. Like Vauchelet, like 
Amans, like Beausire, like Boyaval, etc., he was summoned 
from the Luxembourg, where he was detained, as a witness 
before the Tribunal. He, too, acted the part of a police 
spy. Like the others, he boasted of having saved accused 
persons by his evidence. He gave evidence against Dumas, 
but said nothing about Fouquier-Tinville. ^ 

* Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 45 ter, folio i. 

» Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 45 ier, folios i and 2. 



CHAPTER XI 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE'S second trial : CONTINUATION 
OF THE INQUIRY 

AS the inquiry advanced, the judge shortened the 
examinations of the witnesses. 
From the evidence we have analysed in the pre- 
ceding chapter, there result rather contradictory 
opinions. Many witnesses are crushing, in their answers, in 
regard to the moral conduct of the Public Prosecutor. 
Others, on the contrary, such as Chateau and ex-President 
Dobsen, are clearly favourable to him. " Never," Dobsen 
had said, " did I notice anything in him that could be 
contrary to the principles of the strictest justice. "^ 

On the 19th of Ventose there came forward a witness 
who owed it to his father's wonderful devotion that he was 
still living. This is young LoizeroUes (Frangois Simon), 
aged 24, in the 29th division of police. We know his 
story. 2 He stated, very simply, that he had never seen 
Fouquier-Tinville. But he knew and was sure that his 
father was tried and condemned by the Tribunal on the 8th 
of Thermidor in the year II. (a day before Robespierre's 
fall), on a writ of indictment issued against himself, the son. 
LoizeroUes, the father, an ex-Lieutenant-General of the 
bailiwick of the Arsenal, did not protest and went to death 
to save his son. " By an error as extraordinary as in- 
explicable," said young LoizeroUes, " it was my father 

^ Dobsen, the President of the Section de la Cite, had presided 
on May 30, 1793, over the insurrectional assembly of the commis- 
sioners of the majority of the sections, who met at the Hotel de Ville 
and declared the people in a state of insurrection. He was a Heber- 
tist in his opinions. Perhaps his evidence, so favourable to Fouquier, 
came in part from the animosity he felt against the new Tribunal 
because he had not been re-appointed to it. 

* See Chapter III., p. 99, and Note p. 98. 

236 



AN ACT OF MERCY 237 

whom the jury condemned, a mistake all the more ridiculous 
{sic) as my father was sixty years old and I was only twenty- 
two. The Public Prosecutor, the judges, and the jurors 
could easily have noticed this blunder if they had only 
looked at my father."^ 

Frangois Urbain Meunier, aged 50, captain on half-pay 
in the 104th regiment, of No. 5, Quai d'Ecole, Section du 
Museum, was imprisoned in the Luxembourg for nine 
months. He was summoned to the Tribunal as a witness 
in the conspiracy case. He was one of the four police spies 
who were heard against a large number of accused persons. 
He affirmed that he knew nothing and said nothing. He 
thought that at the hearing Fouquier performed the duties 
of Public Prosecutor. He was not sure of this. 

An official defender, Bernard Jean Louis Malarme,^ 
aged 44, residing at No. 531, Rue des Prouvaires, Section 
du Contrat-Social, spoke of the release of prisoners due to 
Fouquier (Sarce, an ex-captain, and Bayard La Vingtrie, 
lieutenant of the bailiwick). Fouquier, on a letter from 
Guffroy, the Representative of the people, placed on one 
side the papers relating to Citizen Dupuy, an employee in 
the Committee of General Security, " whilst waiting for 
a more favourable opportunity." This saved Dupuy. 

When Malarme recognised that his position as official 
defender at the Revolutionary Tribunal had become useless, 
he had himself appointed secretary in the prosecutor's 
office, " to take charge of the correspondence there." He 
could thus observe Fouquier's activity and his constant 
obedient attention to the orders he received from the 
governing committees. He could also observe, as did the 
whole staff in the office, " with what repugnance Fouquier 
saw artisans and labourers placed on trial." 

He saw Vadier, Amar, and others in Fouquier's private 
room, but was never present at their conversations. He 
affirmed that he placed aside " in his possession " the 
documents relating to the ninety-four inhabitants of Nantes. 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 100, 3rd dossier, p. 45 ter, folio 2. 
* He signs thus. 



238 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

Fouquier had always given heed to the representations 
M'hich he made in their favour. 

He thought he noticed that Dumas was Fouquier's enemy. 
Twice on the night between the 9th and loth of Thermidor, 
the ex-Pubhc Prosecutor sent him to the Committee of 
Pubhc Safety to tell that Committee that he was at his post 
at the Tribunal, When he came back, he found Fouquier 
having supper with the attendant in the refreshment-room, 
Morisan, his family, and Gillier, one of his secretaries and 
Morisan's son-in-law. 

Next there came to give evidence, Pierre Frangois Morisan, 
aged 54, wine-seller and attendant in the refreshment-room. 
He kept the Cafe des Subsistances in the hall of the Palace. 
He formerly kept the refreshment-room " in one of the 
towers, near the Revolutionary Tribunal." 

Morisan repeated what his wife and daughter said. Fou- 
quier often took his meals at their place. He believed he 
saw in him " much zeal and activity." He heard him 
complain that he performed " painful functions," and even 
showed " some fears on his own account." 

He had not been present at sessions of the Tribunal 
" since the period when a great number of accused persons 
began to be tried there at once, because this multitude of 
prisoners or witnesses caused a great crowd at his place, 
and this obhged him to remain and serve them." On 
several occasions he furnished the accused with refresh- 
ments and food, by order of Fouquier, Dumas, or others. 

Fouquier would say to him : " There have been so many 
of them to-day. There will be thirty more of them to-moiTOw. 
I understand nothing of all this." 

Morisan remarked " that so great a quantity of the 
accused must tire him out." He asked him how he was able 
to hold out. Fouquier answered : " What would you have 
me do ? I have orders from the Committee of Public 
Safety." 

On the evening of the 9th of Thermidor, Fouquier said 
to him : " For my part, I remain at my post." 

Next there came forward a sinister figure of a prisoner. 



THE BICETRE CONSPIRACY 239 

In order to get better treatment, to give himself importance, 
or from fear, or to obtain his Hberty, he had become a 
police spy. 

He was Joseph Manini, aged 47 ; he called himself a man 
of letters. He had been imprisoned for more than sixteen 
months. Just now, he was at La Bourbe or Port-Libre, He 
mentioned the prisons in which he had been incarcerated — 
the Madelonettes (four months), Saint-Lazare (five to six 
months) , the Plessis (from the 2nd of Thermidor until about 
the 22nd of Frimaire), the Luxembourg, and then Port- 
Libre where he was at present confined. He related what 
he knew of the conspiracies, his relations with Coquery, 
another police spy, the conversations he had overheard and 
reported. He thought that at one of the hearings to which 
he came as a witness, Fouquier performed the duties of 
Public Prosecutor. " The accused persons spoke for as long 
as they wished without being interrupted, except one, 
who defended himself with sarcasms and insults directed 
against the Tribunal." 

Fran9ois Dupaumie,^ aged thirty-five and a half, jeweller, 
of No. 124, Rue de la Verrerie, imprisoned in the Plessis 
since the 24th of Brumaire, saw Fouquier come one day, 
about the end of Prairial or the beginning of Messidor, 
with a detachment of poHce and three vehicles, to Bic^tre, 
of which Dupaumie was governor. There Fouquier had a 
table placed in one of the courtyards. He drew out a list, 
and summoned thirty-six or thirty-seven persons who had 
been informed against by prisoners who were sentenced to 
chains. This was the Bic^tre conspiracy.- 

Dupaumie took care to exonerate himself from any share 
in this act of Fouquier. He affirmed that, so long as he was 
governor of Bic^tre, the house was " perfectly quiet " ; 
that he noticed no conspiracy. Fouquier said to him : 
*' I have been present at the hearing when thirty-six or 
thirty-seven individuals were condemned, I knew that the 
witnesses were scamps. The prisoners v/ould not have been 
condemned if they themselves had not confessed they had 
1 He signs thus. * See Chapter III. 



240 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

conspired against the Convention, and had not thrown the 
responsibihty for this fact on one another.^ 

Jean Advenier, aged forty-nine, an assistant in the 
depository of mihtary provisions and forage at Orleans, had 
been secretary in the prosecutor's office from October in the 
year H. {sic) until after the 9th of Thermidor, " In the 
early days," he forwarded writs of indictment. After the 
22nd of Prairial, he heard Dumas and Coffinhal say to accused 
persons who tried to defend themselves : — " You have no 
right to speak." 

He never saw Fouquier demanding this right for them. 

He saw VouUand, Vadier and Amar coming fairly often to 
Fouquier's room, and shutting themselves up " carefully " 
with him. He often saw members of the Revolutionary Com- 
mittees come and ask Fouquier for warrants to arrest per- 
sons. Fouquier would answer them : "Bring me the reports 
and documents which state the offences and I will deUver 
them to you. But I do not want to dehver them to you 
officially.' He sometimes saw Fouquier " lamenting the 
fate of some condemned person." 

Jean Baptiste Toussaint Beausire, aged thirty-three and 
a half, living on his income at Choisy-sur-Seine, had been im- 
prisoned in the Luxembourg, in Sainte-Pelagie, in the Plessis, 
and in the Hospice de I'Eveche.- He gave evidence at 
length on what he knew about the conspiracies, and he 
ended thus : " On the 19th of Messidor I heard the man who 
performed the duties of Public Prosecutor at that hearing 
say, ' The Morin who is here is not the man who was to be 
placed on trial. But as I have been looking for him for a 
long time I do not want to let him escape.' This Morin was 
placed on trial. No witness spoke against him. He was, 
nevertheless, condemned with the rest."^ 

Jean Baptiste Vergnhes, aged 67, living on his income in 
Paris, at No. i, Quai d'Egalite, He de la Fraternite, gave an 

» Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 45 ter, folio 3 and 46, 
folios I and 2. 

■' ^ Beausire is the husband of the woman d'Oliva (of the Diamond 
Necklace affair). In prison he played the part of a police spy. 

» Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 46, folios 2 to 6. 



FAVOURABLE TESTIMONY 241 

account of the dinner that took place at his house on the 9th 
of Thermidor.i 

Jacques Marie Botot-Dumesnil, aged 36, commander 
of pohce of the Tribunal, residing at No. 4, Cloitre Notre- 
Dame, Section de la Cite, had no intercourse with Fouquier 
except in so far as related to the maintenance of order within 
the precincts of the Palace of Justice. Fouquier never spoke 
to him except a few chance words. Every evening one or two 
gendarmes accompanied him to the Committee of Public 
Safety, waited for him until very late at night, and came 
back with him. 

On the 9th of Thermidor, about four o'clock in the evening, 
Botot-Dumesnil, was arrested in the middle of his troop, 
by order of Hanriot, Fleuriot and Payan. Set at liberty 
the same evening by order of the Committee of General 
Security, he returned about eight or nine o'clock ; he was 
then sent for by Fouquier, whom he found in the refresh- 
ment-room, seemingly ignorant of what was taking place. 
He heard him say several times : — " Whatever they do, I 
remain at my post." 

Guillaume Alexandre Tronson-Ducoudray, aged 44, a 
lawyer, of No. 17, Rue des Victoires Nationales, Section 
Guillaume-Tell, thought he remembered that in the Leonard 
Bourdon case,^ Fouquier-Tinville was not so violent in his 
speech for the prosecution as he was in other cases later on. 
" He seemed to him in those cases to exceed the bounds of 
moderation and impartiality becoming to his office every 
time that the accused persons appeared to him to have been 
designated by the Government." Moreover, Fouquier often 
urged him not to press for the trial of accused persons whom 
he had to defend. He remarked " that the moment was not 
favourable, and that by waiting some time they might 
perhaps be saved." 

Mathurin Denys Lainville, aged 47, an official defender at 
the Tribunal, residing at No. 354, Rue de Chartres, Section 

^ We have given an account of it, from his evidence, in Chapter IV. 
* In this case Tronson-Ducoudray defended some of the citizens 
of Orleans who were accused (July 12, 1793). 

Q 



242 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

des Tuileries, knew Fouquier as a fellow-student. He had 
observed him in his career as procurator at the Chatelet, 
as director of the jury d' accusation of the Tribunal established 
on August 17, 1792, and, finally, as Public Prosecutor of the 
Revolutionary Tribunal. 

He constantly attended the sessions of the Tribunal down 
to Hebert's trial. During that period the official defenders 
had every latitude for giving effect to the means of defence of 
accused persons. From that moment (the date of the begin- 
ning of what was called " the Tribunal's batches") he saw 
that he no longer had the same latitude in pleading his 
cases. He decided to tell people who claimed his services 
that he no longer defended cases before that Tribunal. He 
was desirous of pointing out that he ceased to plead because 
of the remarks made to him by Coffinhal and Fouquier. 
Those two magistrates warned him " that henceforth official 
defenders must be very circumspect in their defences ; the 
Revolutionary Tribunal was not so much a tribunal of 
morality and justice as a tribunal established to judge in 
accordance with pronounced public opinion (sic)."^ 

Louis Claude Adnet,- aged 57, captain of the police of the 
tribunals, residing at No. 120, Rue de la Harpe, Section des 
Thermes, had no intercourse with Fouquier-Tinville except 
in so far as related to the daily service of the Tribunal. He 
sometimes saw Fouquier getting angry with the ushers when 
he did not find those whom he had asked them for. He 
was often present at hearings. From the 22nd of Prairial 
to the 9th of Thermidor " persons were no longer tried, they 
were condemned." Accused persons were barely asked their 
names, their ages, and conditions. Several times he com- 
plained to Fouquier ' ' of the rigours and horrors of the assist- 
ant executioner towards the condemned women." Fouquier 
answered him : " What would you have me do ? " 

However, Fouquier caused one of the executioner's assist- 
ants to be imprisoned for twenty-four hours. 

Fouquier said to him, on the evening of the 9th of Ther- 

^ Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 46, folios 7 to 13.- 
* He signs thus. 



"STRANGLING THE PROCEEDINGS ' 243 

midor, after having acquainted himself with the events of 
the day : "I remain at my post." 

He refused to go to the Commune in spite of the soHcita- 
tions of certain persons. He asked several times if " those 
scamps, Dumas and Coffinhal, had been arrested." That 
same day Adnet remarked to the Pubhc Prosecutor that to 
secure the execution of the condemned persons would 
endanger the police. Fouquier answered him : ''I cannot 
stop the course of justice." 

Jean Baptiste Christophe Jullienne, aged 27, a lawyer, 
of the Quai Conti, near the Mint, frequented the Tribunal a 
great deal in his capacity as ofhcial defender. He was sure 
that, in a great number of cases, particularly those of the 
Farmers-General and the Members of the Parlements, the 
haste was such that well-intentioned jurors were scarcely 
able to fit the name of the accused to the person they had 
before them. Several times he saw the jurors declare them- 
selves sufficiently informed when the proceedings had hardly 
begun. 

" It was what was called ' strangling the proceedings.' " 

Fouquier often prevented cases from coming to trial. He 
would say that the moment was not favourable. Several 
persons thus owed him their existence. 

Louis Charles Hally, aged 42, janitor of the Plessis house 
of detention, Rue Saint- Jacques, knew that Fouquier went 
there sometimes to make visits. Hally went to the prose- 
cutor's office to give Fouquier an account of the state of 
affairs in the house of detention. The Public Prosecutor 
did not give him a good reception. Manini and Coquery, 
summoned to the Tribunal to give evidence concerning the 
alleged conspiracy in the prisons, came back enchanted with 
the welcome that Fouquier had given them, so they said. 

Gabriel Nicolas Monet, aged 38, an usher of the Tribunal, 
frequently saw Fouquier giving orders in his office " with 
great violence." He very often erased names from the lists 
of the accused who were to be placed on trial next day, and 
added others. He used to say he had received orders from 
the Committee. The ushers, owing to those charges, were 



244 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

compelled to spend nights copying out indictments. They 
were often compelled to take in " extra writers to work night 
and day." 

Sometimes when the indictments were very long " and 
many copies were required for which they had only from the 
evening until the next day," there came to them from the 
prosecutor's office the first folio of the memorandum, then 
the second, then in succession all the others until the indict- 
ment was completed. 

Jean Louis Marie Villain d'Aubigny, aged 42, ex-assistant 
to the Minister of War and General Agent for Military Trans- 
ports at Paris, of No. 60, Rue Montpensier, at the time de- 
tained at La Bourbe, had the following story from Senar, 
who told it to him in the presence of several persons at the 
Luxembourg. 

Senar was one day with Fouquier. They had a discus- 
sion, and Fouquier said to him : " Do you know that I will 
place you in the dock ? " 

' ' How could you do that ? You know that I am a patriot, 
and that I have served my country as well as I could." 

" Bah ! " answered Fouquier, " what does that matter ? 
Do you not know that when the Committee of PubUc Safety 
has decided on the death of any one — patriot or aristocrat — 
he has to go through it ? "^ 

Philippe Marie Tampon, aged 30, judge of the Tribunal 
of the Third Arrondissement, at present in the service 
of the Criminal Tribunal of the Department of Paris, heard 
Fouquier say, at the dinner on the 9th of Thermidor, in 
the house of Vergnhes, when he learnt of Robespierre's 
arrest : " My post is in the prosecutor's office, where I may 
receive orders at any moment, and I am going there. "- 

Next, a man who owed his life to an error in the writ of 
indictment came forward to give evidence of this. His father 
he^d been guillotined in his place. =^ 

Guy Marie Sallier, aged 31, a former Councillor in the 

' Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 46, folios 13 to 14. 
^ Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 64. 
^ See Chapter II., p. 60. 



MISTAKEN IDENTITY 245 

Parlement of Paris, a lawyer, residing at No. 7, Rue du 
Grand-Chantier,^ Section de 1' Homme- Arme, declared that 
Henry Guy Sallier, ex-President of the Cour des Aides, his 
father, was included by mistake in the arrest, made by the 
Committee of General Security on the 9th of Germinal in 
the year II., of the ex-Presidents and Councillors of the 
Parlement of Paris, who were charged with having signed or 
adhered to the protests made by the Vacation Chamber of 
that Parlement. On the 29th of the same month his father 
was examined before a judge of the Revolutionary Tribunal. 
Fouquier was present. 

His father declared that his name was Henry Guy Sallier, 
a former President of the Cour des Aides, and said that there 
was an error regarding his person, as he did not belong to the 
former Parlement of Paris. 

This made no difference. A letter was produced against 
him, signed " Sallier," and couched in general terms, from 
which an alleged adhesion to the protests of the members of 
the Parlement was inferred. He answered that he did not 
admit that letter to be his, but his son's (the witness's) . 

Nothing more was said to him about it. He was con- 
ducted to the Conciergerie. Fouquier, without taking any 
other information, hastened to make out a writ of indict- 
ment, in which he stated that, by resolution of the Committee 
of General Security, Henry Guy Sallier, ex-President of the 
Cour des Aides, would be charged before the Revolutionary 
Tribunal with having taken part in the protests of the Vaca- 
tion Chamber of the Parlement of Paris. This was false, 
for the resolution of the Committee of General Security 
had mentioned Sallier, ex-President or Councillor of the 
Parlement. 

" Forgetting his first statement," Fouquier attributed 
the son's letter to the father. He had the father brought 
to trial. The father was condemned to death on the day 
following (the twenty-fifth prisoner) in spite of the evidence 
and notwithstanding his protests. ^ 

* Rue des Vieilles-Haudriettes et des Quatre-Fils. 

* Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 64. 



246 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

Louis Severin Guyard, aged 29, a farmer from Mandres, 
near Brunoy, had been imprisoned at the Plessis. He saw 
Fouquier-Tinville there for the first time. " He had just 
loaded the vehicles with victims for his Tribunal." Guyard 
tried to speak to him to beg him to have him tried. 
Fouquier answered roughly : " You will come in your turn. 
You are all scoundrels." 

Fouquier seemed to be very familiar with Hally, the 
janitor. 

" They consulted together on the surest and quickest 
method of being able to take a greater number of victims 
from the houses of detention, in order that the lists might 
always be provided complete." 

In order " to satisfy Fouquier 's impatience. Hally — 
according to the witness's account — answered him one day 
that he had to satisfy himself with sending him the surnames 
without the Christian names, that this method would be 
quicker."^ 

After the 25th of Ventose, Judge Pissis gave place in 
the inquiry to Judge Jean Francois Godart. It was before 
him that the younger Sallier and Guyard, the farmer, 
appeared. It was also before him that, on the 27th of 
Ventose, there appeared Pierre Urbain Deguaigne, aged 48, 
an ex-usher of the Tribunal, now living on his income in 
Paris, at No. 4, Quai de la Republique. 

He was acquainted with Fouquier. " His principal 
characteristic was irascibility. He frequently gave way to 
violent outbursts. He often drank wine in the evening, 
and came and made a horrible racket in the olhces, breaking 
and damaging the portfolios, and using the hardest language 
to the employees." 

But " at bottom, he never saw him cruel or ferocious." 

He frequently saw him with jurors — Chretien, Auvray, 
Topino-Lebrun, Prieur, Trinchard and others — eating in the 
refreshment-room, " together or separately." 

The witness was particularly charged " to attend to the 
death sentences." The only question that Fouquier used to 
^ Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 64. 



VIOLENT OUTBURSTS 247 

ask when he came back from the executions was : — " Were 
there many people there ? "^ 

Marie Pierre Joseph Fonteines-Bire,^ aged 27, living on his 
income at No. 113 Quai Malaquai, Section de I'Unite, had 
been imprisoned for a long time in various houses of detention 
during the Terror. At the Plessis, he noticed that Fouquier 
often came there, and consulted with the janitor. It was 
said that he had dined several times with him. But that 
was merely " a report." 

Andre Contat, aged 50, formerly a clerk in the ushers' 
office of the Tribunal, residing in Paris at No, i, Rue des 
Rats, Section du Pantheon, declared that he only knew 
Fouquier-Tinville when he was employed in the ushers' 
office. He often saw the Public Prosecutor come, swearing 
and shouting " either at the ushers or at the clerks." He 
used to complain that the work was not done fast enough. 
He broke the portfolios by the way he struck them with his 
hand. He made everybody tremble. He went so far as to 
say : "If you do not hurry, I will lock you up. I will have 
you locked up," 

It was more particularly after dinner that he gave way to 
those " violent and frightful " outbursts. 

The amount of work was such that the " trembling " 
clerks would tell him that they would never have time 
between the evening and the following morning to copy and 
serve all the writs of indictment which he ordered them to 
prepare. He would answer them : " Do as you like ! 
There will always be enough of them. Hurry ! Things 
must move ! " 

They were often brought indictments to copy which were 
signed by him but not by the judges. They pointed this 
out to him. He answered : " Go on with your work. 
They will be signed." 

It was Contat who, meeting Fouquier on the 9th of Ther- 
midor " in the archway adjoining the ushers' office," re- 
marked to him that " something was taking place in Paris," 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 64. 

2 He signs thus. 



248 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

and that perhaps it v/ould be prudent to put off the execution 
of the condemned persons until the morning, so as not to 
" expose " the pohce. To which Fouquier answered, speak- 
ing to the executioner's assistant : " The course of justice 
must not be stopped." 

Fouquier afterwards went out to dinner. Contat had since 
learnt that that dinner took place in the He Saint-Louis. 

Twice the witness noticed that writs of indictment were 
signed by Fouquier although the names of the accused were 
not written in them. For this purpose he left a long space 
of blank paper on which to write them. 

Next came a deposition that was terrible for Fouquier. It 
was that of Nicolas Joseph Paris, called Fabricius, chief 
registrar of the Revolutionary Tribunal, residing in Paris 
in the Rue des Fosses-Saint-Germain-des-Pres. He was 
appointed registrar of the Tribunal by Danton. He did not 
hide his indignation after Danton's trial. Four days after 
Danton's death, he was imprisoned in the Luxembourg and 
placed in solitary confinement. Set at liberty after Robe- 
spierre's fall, he had been re-appointed registrar by a decree 
of the 22nd of Thermidor in the year H. He hated Fouquier 
with an implacable hatred. He said : ' ' Towards the end of 
September in the year H., the Tribunal was almost entirely 
reorganised. This reorganisation was the work of the Com- 
mittees of Pubhc Safety and of General Security, along with 
Fouquier and Fleuriot,^ who presented various members as 
candidates. Those members were appointed. The cause 
of this reorganisation was that it was desired to get rid of 
honest jurors. 

" It was at this period that the Committees of government 
took possession of the Tribunal, which became an instrument 
in their hands. There is no case of any unhappy wretch 
being acquitted, who was sent by those Committees to the 
Tribunal ; if that happened he was again arrested and 
guillotined. 

* Lescot-Fleuriot, one of the Public Prosecutor's deputies, then 
Mayor of Paris, was guillotined with Robespierre and the members 
of the Commune on the loth of Thermidor. 



UNINTERRUPTED VOLLEYS 249 

" The Tribunal being composed of four sections, there 
ought to have been a selection by lot of judges and jurors ; 
instead of such a selection it was a choice that was made of 
them ; this was done above all when there were important 
cases to be tried ; it was done, to my knowledge, in the case 
of Hebert and Vincent, and in that of Philippeaux, Camille, 
Danton, and others. This choice was made by Fleuriot and 
Fouquier in the Council Chamber, in the presence of several 
judges. The jurors chosen were those whom Fouquier 
called ' solid ' persons on whom one could count — Trinchard, 
Renaudin, Brochet, Leroi, called ' Tenth of August,' 
Prieur, Aubry, Chatelet, Didier, Vilate, Laporte, Gautier, 
Duplay, Lumiere, Desboisseaux and Bernard (these last 
three were guillotined as members of the rebel Commune), 
as well as several others known at the Tribunal as firers of 
uninterrupted volleys. Those jurors, when they were serving, 
went in the morning to Fouquier' s room where the judges on 
duty often were. There they discussed the case for the day. 
Instructions what to do were given them. 

" From there they went up to the refreshment-room, 
through the windows of which they saw with pleasure the 
victims passing by whom they were about to sacrifice, and 
against whom they allowed themselves to make insulting 
remarks. One day I was in Fouquier's room. Some one 
came to announce that the hearing in the hall, formerly called 
the Hall of Saint-Louis, had ended, and that several of the 
persons placed on trial had been acquitted. Fouquier 
burst out against the jurors, stamping with his foot, and 
saying : ' Give me the names of those beggars. One can count 
on nothing with those people. Here are safe cases breaking 
in our hands ! ' 

" Fouquier repeated similar statements on several occa- 
sions when accused persons were acquitted. 

" In the course of Ventose in the year II., the case of 
Hebert, Vincent, Ronsin and others came on. Lengthy 
informations were lodged. More than two hundred wit- 
nesses were heard. A large number designated Pache and 
Hanriot as heads of a faction, the one as the chief judge and 



250 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

the other as chief soldier of that faction. One evening, 
before the trial, the Tribunal assembled in the Council 
Chamber and deliberated on the charges which were brought 
against Pache and Hanriot in the various declarations it 
had received. Dumas, who was drunk, proposed that a 
warrant for arrest should be issued against Hanriot. Fleuriot 
opposed this on the pretext that they ought not to arrest the 
head of the Parisian army without referring the matter to 
the Committee of Public Safety. His opinion prevailed, 
and on the same evening Fouquier, Dumas and Herman 
went to the Committee of Public Safety to inform it of the 
debate that had just taken place. I knew the next day that 
they were reprimanded by the Committee, and particularly 
by Robespierre, for having deliberated about arresting 
Hanriot. They received orders to get rid of any proofs that 
might exist against Pache as well as against Hanriot. Ron- 
sin, Hebert and others were placed on trial ; the proceedings 
began, and when certain witnesses wanted to speak of Pache 
and Hanriot, President Dumas interrupted them, saying it 
had nothing to do with those persons, that they were not 
on trial. He uttered a eulogy of them, speaking of the 
virtue of Pache, who had the confidence of the people, of 
Hanriot 's good citizenship and his courage. The witnesses 
were reduced to silence. Fouquier was present and per- 
formed the duties of Public Prosecutor. He took care not 
to contradict the President. 

" Afterwards came the proceedings entered into against 
Camille DesmouUns, Phihppeaux, Danton and others. It 
was in this afiair that I saw the Committees of Pubhc Safety 
and of General Security employing the most refined Machia- 
velism, and Fouquier, like Dumas, lending himself basely 
and willingly to the perfidious projects of those two Com- 
mittees, who wished to sacrifice the most enlightened citizens 
and the firmest defenders of our hberty, in order that they 
might more surely succeed in establishing their own tyranny 
and the barbarous system which they have since employed. 

" At eleven o'clock the accused were brought into the 
room where the court sat. After the reading of the indict- ■ 



DANTON'S REQUEST 251 

ment, Westermann and Soulier were sent for and joined 
with Danton, Camille and Philippeaux, just as these last 
had been joined with d'Eglantine, Chabot and d'Espagnac. 
In this way there were brought into the case three groups 
of persons who had never seen or known one another — a 
refinement of perfidy often made use of by the Committees 
and still oftener by Fouquier, confounding men of the 
highest probity, the most intrepid defenders of our liberty, 
with low scoundrels and the declared enemies of the 
Revolution. 

" At this session Camille Desmoulins challenged the juror 
Renaudin, and gave reasons for his challenge. Those 
reasons seemed to me to be well founded. Fouquier ought 
to have requested the Tribunal to pronounce upon these. 
But a juror such as Renaudin was too much needed ; and 
care was taken not to allow the challenge, which was not 
even considered. The accused, seeing a marked partiality 
on the part of the Tribunal, which was surrounded by mem- 
bers of the Committee of General Security, who were placed 
behind the judges and the jurors, asked that several Deputies 
(to the number of sixteen) should be summoned and heard 
as witnesses. Danton also asked the Tribunal to write to 
the Convention in order that a commission of its members 
should be appointed to receive the protest that he, Camille, 
and Philippeaux desired to make against the dictatorship 
exercised by the Committee of Public Safety. These re- 
quests were in no way acceded to ; they were refused by the 
President, by Fouquier, and by his worthy friend, Fleuriot, 
who, with Fouquier, filled jointly the post of Public Prose- 
cutor. As the Tribunal had no valid reason to offer the 
accused for not granting a request that could not be refused 
without injustice, the President closed the session. 

" The next day the hearing began very late. Some 
questions were put to some of the accused. Danton asked 
leave to speak in order to answer the charges brought against 
him. This was at first refused under the pretext that he 
should speak in his turn. As he insisted, it was impossible 
to persist in the refusal. He took the indictment, and as 



252 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

every count with which he was charged was unsupported 
by proof or documents, and was even devoid of probabihty, 
it was not difficult for him to justify himself. A great part 
of the audience applauded his justification. This was not 
what the Tribunal wanted. The President withdrew his 
permission to speak on the pretext that he was tired, and 
that each prisoner should speak in turn. Danton only 
ceased speaking when the President had promised that on 
the next day he could refute the other counts in the indict- 
ment with which he had not been given time to deal, and, 
to end the matter, the session was brought to a close. 

" On the following day the hearing again began very late. 
It was desired to waste time, as it was feared that the 
truth might come to light before the ending of the three 
days after which it was proposed to induce the jurors 
to say they were sufficiently informed of the facts, as 
actually happened. When the accused came in, Danton 
asked leave to speak in order to continue his justification. 
This was refused on the pretext that the other accused 
persons had to be examined regarding the acts imputed 
to them. Danton, Camille, and Philhpeaux again requested 
the appearance of the Deputies, their colleagues. They re- 
quested the Tribunal to write to the Convention so that a 
commission might be appointed to receive the informations 
they wished to lodge. It was then that Fouquier, instead 
of acceding to the just and well-founded demands of the 
accused, wrote a letter to the Committee of Public Safety in 
which he described the accused as being in a state of revolt, 
and asked for a decree. (It was a decree depriving the 
accused of the right to plead which Fouquier asked, as will 
be seen by the sequel.) He had need of it as, on this occasion 
only, and for a moment, virtue and innocence were seen to 
make crime turn pale. 

" Atrocious as were Fouquier and his friend Fleuriot, the 
judges and the jurors were thunderstruck before such 
men. I believed for a moment that they would not have 
the audacity to sacrifice the victims. I was then ignorant of 
the odious means used to accomplish this, and unaware 



THE FATAL DECREE 253 

that a conspiracy in the Luxembourg was being fabricated, 
by the aid of which and of Fouquier-Tinville's letter the 
scruples of the National Convention were overcome, and a 
decree wrung from it which deprived the accused of the 
right to plead. This fatal decree arrived. It was brought 
by Amar, accompanied by Voulland. I was in the wit- 
nesses' room when they arrived. I saw them turn pale. 
Anger and fright were painted on their faces, so much did 
they seem to fear lest their victims might escape death. 
They greeted me. And wishing to know what the news 
was, I accosted them. Voulland said to me : ' We have 
them, the scoundrels ; they were conspiring in the Luxem- 
bourg.' They sent for Fouquier, who was in court, and he 
came at once. When Amar saw him, he said : ' Here is 
what you are asking for.' (It was the decree depriving the 
accused of the right to plead.) Voulland said : ' Here is 
what will put you at ease.' Fouquier replied, smihng : 
' Faith ! we wanted it,' and returned with a satisiied air 
to the court, where he read the decree and the declaration 
of the scoundrel, Lafiotte. The accused trembled with 
horror at the recital of such lies. The unhappy Camille, 
hearing his wife's name mentioned, uttered cries of distress, 
and said : ' The scoundrels ! Not satisfied with murdering 
me, they want to murder my wife too.' During this scene, 
heartrending to honest and feeling men, some members of 
the Committee of General Security, placed on benches behind 
Fouquier and the judges, were rejoicing with barbarous 
glee at the despair of the unhappy beings whom they were 
sacrificing. Danton perceived them, and pointing them out 
to his companions in misfortune, said : ' Look at those 
low murderers ; they will follow us to death.' The accused 
asked permission to speak in order to show the absurdity 
and improbability of the conspiracy. They were answered 
by the session being brought to a close. During the three 
days that had passed since the beginning of this case, 
the members of the Committee of General Security, and 
particularly Amar, Voulland, Vadier, and David, had not 
left the Tribunal. They came and went, fussed about. 



254 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

spoke to the judges, the jurors, and the witnesses, telling 
all comers that the accused, and especially Danton, were 
scoundrels and conspirators. 

Dumas, Arthur, and Nicolas did the same. The members 
of the Committee of General Security kept up a correspond- 
ence with the Committee of Public Safety. The next day, 
the fourth of the trial, the members of the Committee of 
General Security were at the Tribunal before nine o'clock. 
They went to Fouquier's room. When the jurors assembled, 
I saw Herman, the President, with Fouquier, going out 
of the jurors' room. During this time, Amar, Voulland, 
Vadier, David, and others whom I knew to be members of 
the Committee of General Security were at the bar in a little 
chamber adjoining the jurors' room, where they could hear 
what was taking place in that room. I do not know what 
passed between Herman, Fouquier, and the jurors. But 
one of them, Topino-Lebrun, told me that Herman and 
Fouquier urged them to declare they were sufficiently in- 
formed, and that, in order to induce them to do so, they 
had painted the accused as scoundrels and conspirators, 
and shown them a letter which they said was addressed 
to Danton, and came from abroad. 

" The hearing opened. The jurors declared they were 
sufficiently informed. From that moment the accused 
appeared no more in court. They were shut up separately 
in prison, and sent to the scaffold on the same day by 
Fouquier. Nevertheless, several witnesses had been sum- 
moned at Fouquier's request. Only one was heard on the 
first day of the proceedings, and that one spoke in favour of 
the defence. While the jurors were deliberating, I was 
in the registrar's office, at the back of the room. I heard a 
noise that came from the staircase leading to the jurors' 
room, and I went to the entrance of the office. I saw the 
jurors with Trinchard at their head. With the exception 
of a few they had the appearance of madmen. Rage and 
anger were painted on their faces. Trinchard came up to 
me in a furious manner, and, with a gesture which showed 
the most violent passion, he said : ' The scoundrels are going 




CAMILLE DESMOULINS 



A SINISTER CLASSIFICATION 255 

to perish 1 ' Not wishing to be a witness of such horror, 
I withdrew, groaning over the misfortunes that were over- 
whelming the Repubhc and the still greater horrors which 
such tyranny presaged. The next day I went to the Tri- 
bunal with the firm resolution that it should be for the last 
time. I was determined to hand in my resignation. Fou- 
quier, having asked at the registrar's office for a copy of the 
list of jurors, I wanted to know what use he intended to 
make of it. I brought it to him to the refreshment-room 
M^here he was. Fouquier took his pencil, and, on the margin, 
at the side of several names, he wrote /, meaning ' feeble.' I 
noticed that he marked with an / some of those who had been 
in the previous day's case, and I pointed this out to him. 
He answered me ; ' He is a bit of a reasoner. We do not 
want people who reason. We want things to move.' 

" I could not prevent myself from making a movement of 
disapprobation. He perceived it, and looking at me 
fixedly said : ' Besides, it is what the Committee of Pubhc 
Safety wants.' 

" Two days later, on the 20th of Germinal, at eleven 
o'clock at night, as I was returning home, I was arrested by 
order of the Committee of Pubhc Safety and taken to the 
Luxembourg, where I was placed in solitary confinement, 
whence I was released only after the revolution of the 9th of 
Thermidor. 

" On the 2ist, the Committee of General Security sent its 
worthy agent. Heron, to my house. He wanted by every 
means to find and arrest me. I was already arrested. Dis- 
satisfied at not having had that pleasure, Heron annoyed 
my wife, treated her in the most insulting manner, erased 
the seals which had already been affixed, and quartered a 
gendarme in my dwelling. He remained there for the four 
months that my imprisonment lasted. 

" By the decree of the 22nd of Thermidor I went back to 
the Tribunal to perform my duties as registrar. My first 
care, when I went back to that place, was to acquaint myself 
of what had happened during my imprisonment. First I 
was handed two lists containing the names of fifty-five 



256 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

citizens who were to have been tried on the nth of Thermidor. 
These were citizens sent on to the Tribunal by the Popular 
Commission. I noticed that on the margins of these lists, 
which had been delivered to the ushers by Fouquier, there 
were written as witnesses the names of two members of the 
Revolutionary Committee of the Section to which each 
prisoner belonged, so that those who caused them to be 
arrested were to give evidence against them. Those lists 
were sent by me to the Committee of General Security. I 
have also sent several other documents to the Commission 
of Twenty-One, so as to supply information to the members 
who compose it. Two thousand and fifty-eight citizens 
have been sent to death by the Tribunal, and against the 
greater number of them neither documents nor witnesses 
were produced ; and above all, since the 22nd of Prairial, 
nearly three hundred citizens have been executed in whose 
case there were only drafts of sentences, signed but not 
filled in. 

" I affirm that I have sent to Citizen Cambon, the 
PubHc Prosecutor's deputy who is entrusted with pre- 
paring Fouquier's trial, twenty-seven bundles of papers 
which contain material offences committed by him, his 
deputies, and the presidents and judges of the Tribunal. 
It is impossible to enumerate them on account of their 
number. 

" Fouquier has kept in his possession all the resolutions 
of the Committees of government which sent prisoners to 
the Tribunal to be tried, as well as the warrants for arrest 
which he issued. He has kept in like manner the documents 
and reports of a great number of cases tried, and especi- 
ally the important cases. Fouquier received various sums 
of mone}^ jewels, plate, and notes which ought to have been 
deposited in the registry. As far as I know he did not keep 
a register of those deposits." ^ 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 58. 



CHAPTER XII 

FOUQUIER-TINVILLE'S second trial : END OF THE INQUIRY 
— INDICTMENT FORMULATED BY JUDICIS 

N succession to his colleague Godart, Judge Pissis 
resumed the preliminary examination on the ist of 
Germinal. The inquiry was coming to an end. It 
brought out increasingly serious charges against 
Fouquier. The further it advanced, the more the ex-Public 
Prosecutor's brutahty and violence were confirmed. There 
is reason to believe that, as several witnesses said, he was 
often overcome by drink. The criminal haste with which 
he drew out indictments and caused them to be copied was 
both evident and abominable. 

Jean Baptiste Nicolas Leclere, aged 32, an usher in the 
Tribunal, several times saw Fouquier come to the ushers' 
room and burst out into anger " because the business was 
not done quickly enough." 

Another usher, Louis Joseph Georges Trippier, declared : 
" When I was in the Conciergerie, engaged in compihng the 
prison registers or making investigations, I saw Citizen 
Malarme, secretary in the prosecutor's office, arrive and ask 
the registrar for a statement of all priests detained there, 
in order that the statement might be given to the Public 
Prosecutor, who had demanded it." 

Trippier was on one occasion commissioned to go immedi- 
ately to Chatou (although it was midnight), to assemble 
the Revolutionary Committee of the Place, and to break the 
seals affixed in the house of the ex-Marquise de Feuquieres 
in order to obtain a letter written by her to the municipality ; 
to bring back that letter or a certified copy of it to the 
Public Prosecutor at once so that Madame de Feuquieres 
might be placed on trial. He was also to summon three 

R 257 



258 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

witnesses for the prosecution from that district. But not 
having been able to procure the letter in question until late 
on the next day, and having found none of the witnesses 
whom he was commissioned to summon, he returned to 
Paris with the answer of a municipal oihcer and the copy of 
the letter. 

What was his surprise, when he reached the Place de la 
Revolution, towards evening, to learn that the ex-Marquise 
de Feuquieres had been tried and condemned without the 
letter and without witnesses ! 

He was present at several hearings after the 22nd of 
Prairial. The proceedings " were extraordinarily short." 
The accused were hardly asked their names and conditions. 
He once heard Fouquier forbidding a prisoner to speak when 
he wished to defend himself. Fouquier said to the gen- 
darme : " Do your duty." The accused was then deprived 
of the right to plead, taken back to the Conciergerie, and 
condemned. 

Notwithstanding this, the witness, while he was at the 
Conciergerie, one day heard somebody come and give 
orders from the Public Prosecutor to Citizeness Richard, 
" that she should take great care of the prisoners who had 
just arrived, above aU that the children should want for 
nothing. The prisoners seemed to be from Lorraine or 
Courtois."^ 

Antoine Marie Berthaut, secretary to the registrar of 
the Tribunal of the Peace of the Theatre-Frangais Section, 
aged 32, declared that at the Session of the Tribunal when 
the case of the conspiracy in the Carmelite Prison was 
tried, " when there were forty-nine accused persons," 
Fouquier performed the duties of Public Prosecutor. 

He asked a witness if he had anything to say against 
any of the accused. He named one of them. The witness 
answered : "I know him to be an honest man. I have not 
seen him do anything in prison contrary to order, and I am 
confined in the same house of detention." 

Fouquier repHed : " Are you not of the same Section ? " 

^ Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 63, folios i and 2. 



A SLAUGHTER HOUSE 259 

" Yes." 

Then Fouquier said sharply : " I have something against 
you. You are of the same Section. You support one 
another." 

He did not wish to hear more from him. 

We have heard the evidence of Paris, the registrar.^ Here 
is that of Robert Wolff, the registrar, who had already given 
evidence at the previous inquiry on the 6th of Vendemiaire.^ 

He " saw, after the law of the 22nd of Prairial the Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal transformed into a slaughter-house." 
In the space of three hours, " by a form that insulted 
justice," thirty, forty, or fifty persons were placed on trial 
and sent to execution without being allowed the right of 
having themselves defended, and they were even deprived 
of the power of defending themselves. These persons were 
as unknown to one another as were the offences for which 
they were placed on trial by Fouquier's indictments." 

" Twenty and thirty bundles of papers were submitted 
to this sort of a jury in a single one of those cases ; more than 
eight days would have been needed to examine those docu- 
ments." There were no witnesses heard, or almost none. 
The jurors remained only half-an-hour dehberating ; they 
then returned and said that their " so-called consciences " 
were satisfied. If the first portfolio in the registry were 
opened, the truth of those declarations would be found. ^ 

Lucien Fran9ois Dupre, aged 33, usher in the tribunals 
of the Department of Paris, of No. 37 Rue Denis, Section 
<des Amis de la Patrie, was several times in the private room 
of Fouquier, ex-Public Prosecutor of the Tribunal. " Fou- 
quier," he said, " often burst forth against the secretaries 
and clerks because the work was not done quickly enough, 
and because there were not a greater number of victims 
either for that day or for the next day." He noticed in 
him " such an uncommon eagerness to place people on trial, 
that if it had depended on him, he would have sent all the 
prisoners to the scaffold on a single day." 

^ See the preceding chapter, pp. 248-256. " See Chapter VII., pp. 
J67-172. 3 Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 63, folio 6* 



26o THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

One day Dupre saw and read an indictment made out 
against a certain Dietrich/ Mayor of Strasburg ; and not 
having found offences deserving condemnation, he pointed 
this out to Chateau, a clerk in the prosecutor's office, who 
answered him : " You are right. You think that is nothing. 
But the 300,000 livres of income that are not put down 
there are something." 

By this observation, and by the tone in which it was 
uttered. Chateau seemed to the witness to reflect the state 
of mind of the prosecutor's office. 

Dupre was present at several sessions of the Tribunal. 
He noticed " great vehemence against the accused on the 
part of Fouquier." He scarcely left them " time to collect 
themselves," especially in the case of Magon la Balue, in, 
which the grand-daughter of the last-mentioned and her 
husband were condemned on the sole ground that they 
belonged to the family. There was no document, no witness, 
against them. Dupre could not, however, assert positively 
that it was Fouquier who performed the duties of PubUc 
Prosecutor in that case.^ 

For a month the two investigating judges, Pissis and 
Godart, endeavoured to establish the Public Prosecutor's 
responsibility for the criminal haste with which indictments 
were made out, his attitude at the sessions of the Tribunal 
when he sat, the part he played in Danton's case, in that of 
Leonard Bourdon, and in the Prison Conspiracy, and his 
relations with the jurors. 

We have made a lengthy examination of the indictments 
preserved among the Archives. We have demonstrated 
that they were made out with precipitation and negligence, 
and we have heard many depositions relative to Fouquier's 
attitude in the course of the proceedings. 

We know the terrible evidence of the registrar Paris 
in regard to Danton's case. When Paris was confronted 
with Fouquier at the trial, Fouquier exclaimed against this 

1 Frederic Dietrich, Mayor of Strasburg, was guillotined on the 
8th of Nivose in the year II. 

2 Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 63, folio 7. 



BLUFFING THE COMMITTEE 261 

deposition, saying : " It is Danton's death that they would 
revenge here." 

But he was unable to deny the facts of this clear, precise, 
and circumstantial statement. 

Another witness, Villain d'Aubigny, a prisoner at Sainte- 
Pelagie, met Fouquier in that house of detention, in Fructi- 
dor. He said that he reproached the ex-Public Prosecutor 
vehemently for his conduct in Danton's case. Fouquier 
answered that he had no cause for self-reproach as he had 
gone to the Committee of Pubhc Safety and transmitted 
the request of the accused, who desired to have sixteen 
Deputies heard as witnesses. He believed that the Com- 
mittee would offer no opposition to this. The Committee 
refused. 

" I insisted," said Fouquier to Villain d'Aubigny. 
" It was therefore," answered the witness, " a crime for 
you to have deceived the accused and made them lose precious 
time which they might have spent in taking other measures 
for their defence. I tell you that your letter of the 15th, 
written to the Committee, is a crime, for from what had been 
told you on the previous evening, you should have known 
beforehand what would be the answer of the Committee 
to your letter." 

" I wrote it," Fouquier affirmed, " because the people 
who were present at that case demanded, together with the 
accused, that the witnesses they claimed should be heard. 
But I did not foresee the atrocious use that the official 
reporter of that Committee would make of that letter, 
by bluffing the Convention and wringing from it a decree 
depriving the accused of the right to plead. That decree 
was gained by not allowing the Convention time for reflec- 
tion. A rebelKon against Law and Justice on the part of 
the accused was spoken of. That rebelhon never existed." 
" It is very strange," rejoined Villain d'Aubigny, " that 
at the moment when this decree reached the Tribunal, 
at the moment when the Tribunal was informed by its con- 
tents of the horrible manner in which the good faith of the 
Convention had been imposed upon, you did not ask all 



262 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

the members of the Tribunal, all the judges and all the 
jurors, to go with you, that very moment, to the Convention, 
and enlighten it concerning the frightful perfidy by means 
of which it had been surprised into passing a decree that 
sent the accused to the scaffold without hearing them." 

" Restrained myself by the threats that were made to me 
each day, I was unable, in this case as well as in many others, 
to obey the incUnations of my heart," answered Fouquier.i 

In regard to the Leonard Bourdon case, Francois Basse- 
viUe, a tiler from Orleans, declared that he found Leonard 
Bourdon, his witnesses, and Fouquier-Tinville assembled 
in the same room.^ Those witnesses, belonging to " the 
clique that devastated the Orleans district," threw them- 
selves on Leonard Bourdon's neck, and he gave them 
unequivocal evidence of his friendship for them. 

In the course of the preUminary investigations and of the 
trial, Basseville saw Fouquier several times lunching in the 
refreshment-room with those witnesses. When the muni- 
cipal officers of the Orleans district, who had been summoned 
to give evidence, presented themselves in court, Fouquier- 
Tinville silenced them, and said to the President : " Take 
notice. President, that it is a municipal officer who is 
speaking, and that he will never tell you the truth." 

Another witness, Charles Cornu, aged 37, a farmer of 
Orleans, declared that Fouquier and those of the judges 
who had examined the Orleans witnesses in the Leonard 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 64, folio i. 

^ Leonard Bourdon, a teacher and the founder of the Society of 
Young Frenchmen, a boarding-school at which lectures in morals 
were to be given by Robespierre, Collot d'Herbois, Billaud-Varenne, 
etc., had been elected to the Convention by the Department of the 
Loiret. Sent on a mission to Orleans, as he was passing the City Hall 
on March 15, 1793, he had been surrounded by a crowd, dragged 
into the ante-room of the Hall, struck by a bayonet and slightly 
wounded in the left arm and in the head. Was it a premeditated 
assault, or was it a brawl ? The incident happened after a fraternal 
dinner. Had the sentinel of the City Hall been attacked and pro- 
voked by one of the citizens who accompanied the Representative 
of the people ? The Convention, indignant at the attempt against 
one of its members, ordered that the instigators of the attack should 
be tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal. 



FEASTING WITNESSES AND JURYMEN 263 

Bourdon case " appeared to be astonished at the importance 
which the Representative sought to give to that case, and 
did not seem to find in it any serious offence." Leonard 
Bourdon held frequent conferences, morning and evening, 
with Fouquier, down to the moment when the indictment 
was made out and signed. It was at this time that Leonard 
Bourdon had printed what he called Details Concerning the 
Attempt against a Representative of the People, Committed 
at Orleans. This statement was, in part, copied out in the 
indictment. Fouquier, meeting the witness in the registry 
of the Tribunal when he had just left there some documents 
for the defence, told him that he was sorry he had consented 
to his provisional release, that he was guilty, and that he 
had been deceived regarding him, 

" You cannot have been deceived," Comu answered 
him, " since you have in your possession all the charges 
relative to this case." 

The witnesses who had been summoned were daily at 
Bourdon's with Fouquier-TinviUe. Young girls from Orleans, 
who were summoned to give evidence, had, on the evening 
before the hearing, related that Bourdon had feasted them, 
had paid for bouquets for them, and promised them dresses. 
The witnesses had lunched several times in the refreshment- 
room of the Tribunal with Fouquier and some jurors. 
Cornu caused this to be told at the trial, by Julienne, one 
of the defenders. Fouquier showed a good deal of ill-humour 
at this, and said to Juhenne " that he would not be the hap- 
pier for it." He asked the Tribunal for the arrest of several 
witnesses for the defence.^ 

As regards Fouquier' s complicity in that famous phantom 
conspiracy which has been called the Conspiracy in the 
Prisons, here follows a certain number of depositions which 
seem to establish it. 

On the 15th of Ventose in the year III., a pohce officer, 
Charles Mercereau, who had been imprisoned in the Luxem- 
bourg for two months, gave evidence before Judge Pissis that 
he saw ' ' lists of proscribed persons ' ' being made. Some police 
1 Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier p. 64, folios 6 and 7. 



264 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

administrators proposed to him that he should share in the 
work. They told him that Fouquier-Tinville and the Com- 
mittees had people in the Luxembourg " to discover the 
conspiracies." On the night between the 8th and 9th of 
Thermidor people came from Fouquier to fetch twenty-five 
of those alleged conspirators, among whom was an old man 
of about 70 years of age, so infirm that he could only move 
with great difficulty, blind, and in his second childhood. 
He was condemned like the others " for having conspired 
in the prisons."^ 

It is noticeable that the greater number of the witnesses 
declared that the conspiracies were imaginary. One 
" had heard them spoken of " but that was all. Another 
said : "A conspiracy which they said was being hatched." 
Many affirmed that " far from having noticed a conspiracy 
they, on the contrary, had noticed the greatest tranquillity 
and the greatest submission on the part of the prisoners 
who had been terrorised." Another, confined in Saint- 
Lazare, could attest that there was no conspiracy there, 
" He shuddered at seeing ninety persons carried off in three 
days on informations lodged by Manini." Brunet, a wine- 
seller of the Rue de Buci, formerly employed as a wine-seller 
at the Carmelites, " was acquainted with no trace of a con- 
spiracy." The sole care of the prisoners was to amuse them- 
selves and to soften the rigour of imprisonment. Several 
times, when some new-comer or other allowed a rather bitter 
expression, provoked by despair, to escape his lips, he even 
saw them " recalling him to gentleness and hope." Dufau, 
a colonial, imprisoned at the Carmelites, said " that in his 
opinion the alleged conspiracy in the Carmelites was a mjrth 
invented by men greedy for blood. It had for its object 
only a plan of escape contrived by five or six prisoners who 
planned to escape during the night with the help of a bell- 
rope." 

Chavard declared that this conspiracy was " absolutely 
imaginary." The plan of escape of five or six prisoners who 
had found a rope in the bell-tower alone gave birth to the 

1 This was M. Durand Puy de Verine. See Chapter IV., p. 105. 



FOUQUIER AND THE PRISON CONSPIRACIES 265 

idea. " The basis of the indictment which Fouquier drew 
up was as atrocious as it was slanderous, for it related to a 
conspiracy that had no existence except in the brains of the 
Public Prosecutor and his accomplices." Millet, a com- 
missioner from San Domingo, a Deputy in the Convention, 
had been imprisoned in the Carmelites. He noticed no 
conspiracy, what he was witness of was the " heroic patience" 
of the prisoners, " the harshness and rascality " of the janitor, 
Roblatre, the turnkeys, and the police officials. Joly, 
an artist of the Theatre des Arts, " imprisoned for a long time 
by his Revolutionary Committee," never " noticed any 
suggestion of a conspiracy or even of a plan of escape." 
Nevertheless, " in order that that house might be emptied 
more quickly there existed makers of lists of proscribed 
persons." Guyard, the janitor of the Luxembourg, " heard 
a conspiracy spoken of." Nevertheless, within the building, 
he observed no proceedings and heard no remarks that 
pointed to a conspiracy, or it was a very secret one. He had 
no reproach to make against the prisoners.^ 

There are similar declarations regarding the other houses 
of detention. Those who imagined the conspiracies, those 
who used that monstrous imagination to escape the galleys 
and to enjoy a relative liberty since they used to leave the 
prison and go to the Tribunal to give evidence against the 
unfortunate beings about whom they lodged informations, 
they alone knew what the conspiracies were. They gave 
details about them. But their evidence was suspect and 
tainted beforehand, for they were branded with an igno- 
minious name. They were police spies — Benoit, Boyaval, 
Beausire, Manini, Coquery, and Jobert (the Belgian). 

Now follows what the inquiry says about the jurors of the 
former Tribunal, with whom, in a few days, Fouquier was 
to stand his trial. They were his " solid persons," ready to 
condemn for eighteen livres a day. 

Citizen Didier, the juror, had been a locksmith at Choisy- 
sur-Seine. " He could hardly live by his work. He had 
even been obhged to toil at carrying loads in the port. Since 
* Archives Nationales, W. 509, 3rd dossier, p. 64 and p. 58. 



266 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

the Revolution, and especially under Robespierre's reign, 
he had been in very easy circumstances and very familiar 
with Maximilien. As a juror of the Tribunal he acquired 
great prestige at Choisy, where he was the leader of the 
Popular Society, and where he made the citizens of the 
district tremble."^ 

Causeret, a building contractor from Choisy, declared that 
Didier, " a journeyman locksmith, reaUy became one of the 
destroying scourges of the district," that he was " an insepar- 
able companion of Hanriot, and an accomplice in all the 
arbitrary acts and arrests that took place in the Choisy 
district." On one occasion " he pushed his temerity so far 
as to have burned, in his presence, in the middle of the 
Popular Society, a letter from the receiver of taxes who 
asked him to advise its members to pay their taxes." Didier 
said that it " was only aristocrats who paid ; that he was the 
friend of Robespierre and Duplay."^ 

It was Didier who, at a hearing of the Tribunal, asked for 
permission to speak, and said to one of the accused : "Is 
it not enough to prove you an aristocrat that you waited 
on a noble ? Bah I that is enough of it." 

On which they passed to the next accused person. ^ 

The juror Brochet, another " solid man," twice caused the 
arrest of his tenant, Mury, a soap-manufacturer of Paris. 
Brochet was an intimate friend of Momoro. Together they 
had created a Popular Society " in which they only received 
people of their own party or those who wished to belong to 
it." He held at the same time the positions of Captain in 
the National Guard, President of the Revolutionary Com- 
mittee, and juror of the Tribunal. "This man, by the 
arrests and condemnations with which he stained himself 
in the exercise of the offices which he accumulated, had 
made himself the opprobrium and execration of his whole 
Section." One day the witness went to Brochet's to pay his 
rent (two or three days before the trial of the woman du 

^ Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 64, folio 3, 

* Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 64, folio 5. 

* Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 58, folio i. 



CHRETIEN'S CAFE 267 

Barry). The juror put him off to another day, saying: 
" They are waiting for me at the Tribunal. I have forty 
rascals to try." 

The witness spent nearly ten months in prison " owing to 
Brochet's attentions."^ 

The juror Chretien, a member of the Revolutionary Com- 
mittee of the Lepelletier Section, " was the scourge of his 
Section." He kept a cafe in the Rue Favart off the Place de 
la Comedie Italienne. " It was from the infernal divan that 
he kept at his house that there issued forth aU the sabred 
and moustached gentry who wandered either into the thea- 
tres to make disturbances, or on the boulevards to drive 
away the respectable women who were taking the air." 
He always had " the word guillotine in his mouth, and 
threatened with Fouquier-Tinville those whom he desired 
to frighten." He boasted of the influence he had with the 
Public Prosecutor. He had been several times on missions 
in his own Department, with powers and warrants which he 
said he held from Fouquier-Tinville. He spread forth 
Terror on these missions. 

When he came back from the Tribunal and was asked by 
the habitues of his "divan" about the judgments passed 
during the day, he used to smile, and " with an insulting and 
barbarous joy " he would answer : " There will be twenty or 
twenty-three to-day." 

" He would then picture, with barbarous gestures, the 
attitude which the condemned persons were to adopt at the 
moment of their execution. "^ 

Another witness said that Chretien often associated with 
Collot d'Herbois, and that he was the terror of all the 
respectable people in his Section. He described how he 
guided the Committee of his Section with cunning and 
ferocity.^ 

Another gave a picture of his " divan," which was fre- 
quented by " a society of bullies and cut-throats." People 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 58, folio 4. 

* Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 64. 

* Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 58, folio i. 



268 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

were only admitted to this den if they could prove that they 
had taken part in the September massacres. " Every time 
that Chretien mounted the tribune, it was to display his 
thirst for human blood. "^ 

Another declared that Chretien never showed himself in 
his Section " except armed with a sabre, pistols or a cudgel " ; 
that he often threatened people with those weapons ; that 
he never exercised power except to oppress his fellow- 
citizens ; that he regarded as aristocrats every rich or noble 
person and even those who held just and virtuous principles. 
" He made this clear on one occasion when he was comph- 
mented on a moral speech which he had dehvered in the 
Temple of Reason of his Section, by replying that he had 
only dehvered that speech in order that by their applause he 
might recognise the aristocrats and moderates, two classes 
of men whom he persecuted." His conduct on the gth of 
Thermidor was very suspicious. He did not go to his 
Section. He remained at his " divan," where he held a 
council. His sole aim was " to join the winning side." He 
had Fouquier-Tinville's name continually in his mouth, and 
called him his friend. It seemed that Fouquier had given 
him blank warrants to arrest people, and that he had 
employed them at Luzarches in the case of an officer whose 
horses he wanted to take. Dubois-Crance was the possessor 
of a document which proved this. 

Chretien had a great deal of influence with his friend, 
Fouquier-Tinville, and lodged informations with him against 
all those of whom he wished to rid himself. He used to 
speak of Fouquier as the best patriot in the Republic, and, 
when the Revolutionary Tribunal was re-organised after the 
9th of Thermidor, he said " that there was a heap of in- 
triguers such as Tallien and others who wanted to oppose 
Fouquier' s nomination, but that the latter could not fail to 
win. "2 

Citizen Beudon, keeper of the furnished " sailors' house " in 
the Rue Gaillon, Lepelletier Section, " knew the man called 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 58, folio 9. 

2 Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 58. 



A PATRIOT 269 

Chretien, the ex-juror of the Tribunal, as one of the greatest 
drinkers of blood it was possible to see." As an agent on 
mission he used to go into the Departments with " blank 
credentials which it was said he held from Fouquier."^ 

Similar evidence about Chretien was given by Renault, 
a mason and building-contractor of Paris, residing at No. 810 
in " the unfinished street " in the Lepelletier Section. He 
had been his comrade in arms in the artillery company of the 
Section. At first he appeared to him to be " rather quiet 
and gentle, not doing much duty, and employing his waiters 
as deputies for him." On the day when the question of 
Marat and Robespierre was discussed and when Louvet 
denounced them in the Convention, Chretien, who was on 
duty that day, displayed his dissatisfaction with the 
Convention in a far from respectful manner, saying : — 

" Let these beggars go away ! They waste our time." 

Since then " he had taken a more imperious tone, and 
began to make himself more feared than liked by his com- 
rades." He brought into the company men like Maillard, 
September massacrers, so-called conquerors of the Bastille, 
who belonged with him to a so-called Popular Society. 

In proportion as the Republican Government became 
established, he gained greater " preponderance," and he 
tyrannised over his Section. He had always been a friend 
of Fouquier, Ronsin, Vincent and Hanriot.^ 

Another witness, Lanchon, a wine-seller of the Rue Neuve- 
Saint-Marc in the Lepelletier Section, one day when he 
went into Chretien's house to drink "a small glass of 
brandy," and expressed astonishment that so many sentences 
of condemnation had been pronounced at the Tribunal in 
such a short time, was answered by Chretien with the words : 

" Bah ! are you surprised at that ? You are not up to 
date. We are almost useless for our part ; but with 
Fouquier-Tinville, who is a patriot, things are done at 
once. The gaol-registers are read and the thing is ended. "^ 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 500, p. 58, folio 10. 

* Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 58, folio 11. 

* Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 63, folio 4. 



270 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

Pierre Armand Le Petit, formerly a distiller, of the Rue 
Marivaux, saw Chretien " dominating over his Section 
for three years." He gave details which confirmed the 
preceding depositions.^ 

The ex-juror Aubry, a tailor, of the Section de I'Unit^, 
" could neither read nor write." He was an " evil man of 
sanguinary instincts." A witness at Fouquier's trial heard 
him say, at the time of the reorganisation of the Tribunal, 
after the 9th of Thermidor, that " the choice of Fouquier- 
Tinville as Public Prosecutor was the best that could be 
made, that only aristocrats could oppose his appointment, 
and that another like him would never be found." It 
appeared that Aubry, in his capacity as a juror, never 
voted except for death. " Two classes were to him food for 
the guillotine — priests and nobles." It was useless to 
examine the documents relating to them.^ 

Another witness, Langlois, a haberdasher of Paris, of the 
same Section as the ex- juror Aubry, knew him " to be an 
ignorant tailor, unable to read or write, and an evil man 
whom he had often heard proposing revolting and san- 
guinary motions. He saw him take some citizens by the 
collar, and threaten others." 

" He congratulated himself on the victims whom he had 
helped to send to the scaffold. He publicly boasted that 
he had never voted except for death at the trials of priests 
and nobles, who, to him, were all food for the guillotine." ^ 

Citizen Porcher, a cabinet-maker, of the Rue Mazarine 
in the Section de 1' Unite, knew Fouquier-Tinville only by 
repute and from sometimes seeing him at the Tribunal. 
But he knew Aubry, the ex- juror, who threatened to 
denounce him to the Jacobin Club, because one day, when 
on guard with him, he had expressed indignation at the 
condemnation of four or five prisoners who had not been 
allowed to speak and whose accusations had not even received 
the final sanction of the Public Minister. Out of this there 

' Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 63, folio 5, 
* Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 58, folio i. 
=» Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 58, folio 2. 



l^ARTIALTTY OF JUDGES AND JURORS 271 

arose a (luarrcl, and the orikxir of the guard inleivcned. 
*' He had always known Aiibry to be a man of blood." 
He had seen him at several trials. He was either asleep, 
or scarcely listening. 

In the affair of Ferrand and Laruelle ^ who were charged 
with complicity in an alleged conspiracy at Montauban, 
on May 10, iy()0, the witness pointed out to h\)uquicr that 
the accused were in no way accomplices, seeing tliat one of 
them had been at Brest and the other at Gondrecourt in 
tlu^ M(nise. His evidence might have been of value. Fouquier 
did not think it htting to have it h(;ard. 

Nevertheless he had followed the course of this trial, which 
took place in one of the halls and was ])resid(ul over by 
Dumas. He had been revolted by the partiality of the judges 
and jurors. Aubry slept. The accused were cut short in their 
speeches. The witnesses for the pros(icution were listened 
to " complacently " ; the witnesses for the defence " in a 
body." They made a hubbub. Aubry woke up. When 
the jurors returned aft(;r a sliort d(;lib(Talion, Aubry, like 
the rest, was convinced of th.e facts and of the culixibility of 
the accused.^ 

" Aubry could neith(T read nor write," declared Robert 
Wolff, the registrar's clerk. " He belonged to my Section. 
He could only write five letters in print, and these were 
enough to bring him in, ev(;ry month, five hundred and forty 
livres as the price of his assassinations." He used to boast, 
besides, in the CQ.i6 at the corner of the Rue de Buci and in 
that of Rue d(; la Chaumi6r(!, where he went daily, that he 
had always earned his money well, and that he had no cause 
to reproach himself, for he had never acquitted anybody.^ 

Andre'* Barraly, aged 3<), hairdresser, of No. 34 Rue 
Neuve-des-]^etits-Champs, facing the Rue Neuve-des- 
Bons-Enfants, Section Guillaume-Tell, had never known 
I^ouquier-Tinville except by reputation. He never had 

' Captain Ferrand and Captain Larucllo were guillotined on <jih 
of Vcntdse in the year II. 

" Archives Nalionales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 58, folio 10. 
» Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 63, foho 7. 



272 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

any relation, direct or indirect, with him. " In his capacity 
as hairdresser, either he himself or his assistant, Lingault, 
had dressed Robespierre's hair for twelve or thirteen 
months at the house of Duplay, an ex- juror of the 
Tribunal, in the Rue Saint-Honore, opposite the Rue Floren- 
tin. He had dressed Duplay's hair two or three times by 
chance when he went to Robespierre, because Duplay hap- 
pened to be in a hurry. The said Duplay, who was very 
reserved and haughty, would not lower himself to speak to 
a hairdresser." ^ 

There was further evidence of what the other jurors were 
like — Renaudin, the maker of musical instruments and 
the keeper of the ball-room at the Lumi^re Barrier ; Lohier, 
the grocer ; and Trinchard, the carpenter.^ Trinchard said : 
" It does not take me much time to try an accused person. 
The mere inspection of his appearance discloses to me the 
morality or immorality of a prisoner. It is enough for me 
to see people in order to settle on my verdict." 

It was also Trinchard, after the 22nd of Prairial and when 
he was no longer a juror of the Tribunal but had been 
appointed a member of the Popular Commission of the 
Museum district, who, as he was lunching one day with 
several of his former colleagues, said to them : " The Com- 
mission is going to begin its operations by sending to you 
at the Tribunal all the priests and nobles in the prisons. 
I hope they will be sent to the guillotine." 

The others applauded.^ 

But the examinations of the witnesses tell us nothing- 
more concerning the relations between those jurors and 
Fouquier-Tinville. We are, therefore, compelled to stop 
here. 

On the 4th of Germinal, Judicis, the PubHc Prosecutor 
of the new Tribunal appointed on the 8th of Nivose pre- 
ceding, had drawn up his indictment against Fouquier and 

^ Archives Nationales, W. 500, p. 58, folio 12. 

* For Trinchard, " Nature's man," see A. Dunoyer : Devix Juris du 
Tribunal Revolutionnaire, Paris, Perrin. 1909. 

* Archives Nationales, W. 500, 3rd dossier, p. 63, folio 6. 



THE WRITS OF INDICTMENT 273 

his accomplices. The accused numbered thirty. At their 
head was Antoine Quentin Fouquier-Tinville, ex-Pubhc 
Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal. Then came 
Delaporte, ex-judge ; Foucault, ex-judge ; Maire, ex-judge ; 
Scellier, ex-Vice-President ; Harny, ex-judge ; Deliege, 
ex- judge ; Garnier-Launay, ex- judge ; Naulin, ex- Vice- 
President ; Felix, ex-judge ; Bravet, ex-judge ; Barbier, 
ex-judge ; and Liendon, ex-deputy to the Public Prosecu- 
tor. Finally came seventeen former jurors — Lohier, 
Trinchard, Leroy, caUed " Tenth of August," Renaudin, 
Chretien, Gauthier, Didier, Ganney, Vilate, Duplay, Prieur, 
Chatelet, Brochet, Girard, Trey, Pigeot, and Aubry. 

Judicis declared that he had made a fresh examination of 
the documents delivered either to his predecessor or to 
himself. 

From this it followed that Fouquier " abetted the projects 
of a liberticidal faction known under the name of that of 
Robespierre, Saint-Just, Couthon, and others who fell imder 
the sword of the law after the 9th of Thermidor." The 
writs of indictment which he presented were full of erasures, 
commitments, and interlineal insertions that were without 
authority. He signed these. He presented others that 
were not filled in, others in which the names of the accused 
were inserted after the indictments had been made out, or at 
the moment when the case was being heard, by a different 
hand and in different ink from that in the body of the docu- 
ments, others in which several names written in small char- 
acters were sometimes intercalated, sometimes written on 
the margin without authority, and from which the names of 
other accused persons had been erased and effaced. He pre- 
sented other indictments in which the statements relative to 
the names of the accused give those of certain persons of 
whom no mention is made in the remainder of the indictment. 
He inscribed in one indictment the name of a person already 
condemned to death and executed. He pleaded in court 
that the corpse of a prisoner who had stabbed himself should 
be taken to the scaffold. He pleaded in court for the 
execution of women who had declared themselves pregnant, 



274 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

and that before the medical officers had pronounced on their 
condition. 

He knew that Fouquier had protested his humanity, the 
rectitude of his conduct as a magistrate, and his absolute 
probity. For his own part, as Public Prosecutor, so far 
from admitting that Fouquier has given proof of his inno- 
cence, he considered that he was guilty, and that he had 
been abetted by the ex-judges, his ex-deputies, and the 
ex- jurors of the Tribunal, men whose bad moral character 
was known and who were closely allied with the conspirators, 
those despots and tyrants who murdered instead of judging. 

If Judicis had been unable to make out a detailed list of 
the documents incriminating Fouquier by their faults of 
form and the omissions with which they swarmed, the 
reason was that their number was too great, and he would 
have risked " causing confusion." 

" Whilst recognising that among those who were con- 
demned there were guilty persons who deserved to be 
punished, one cannot, however, distinguish those from the 
innocent, and the forms even severer than those of martial 
law that were employed to secure condemnations are 
enough to prevent us from making the distinction, so that 
we can legally regard all those acts of condemnation as pure 
murders." ^ 

» Archives Nationales, W. 499, dossier 550, p. 9. 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE FINAL EXAMINATION OF FOUQUIER-TINVILLE. THE 
PROCEEDINGS IN COURT. VERDICT AND DEATH 

THE preliminary inquiry had come to an end. An 
order of the 4th of Germinal in the year III., signed 
by Judges Agier, Liger, Debregeas, Favart, Mazerat, 
Grand, Godeau, Gaillart-Lecart, Godard, Pissis, 
Devillas, and Bertrand d'Aubagne, granted the demand of 
Judicis the Public Prosecutor, and gave him a writ of 
indictment against Fouquier. 

The hour was approaching when Fouquier was to appear 
before his judges ; but, previous to this, he had to undergo 
a fresh cross-examination. 

On the 6th of Germinal, commissioners went to the Plessis 
prison whither the prisoner had been taken. These 
commissioners were Jean Debregeas, Vice-President of the 
new Tribunal, and Cambon, Judicis' deputy.^ 

From its beginning the examination was directed to the 
capital point — the indictments. The commissioners had 
in their hands those terrible documents, fatal to those 
whom they had sent to the scaffold, fatal also, by a reaction, 
to him who had signed, initialled, annotated, or com- 
piled them. They existed. He was responsible for them. 
They were filled with erasures, commitments, and unauth- 
orised insertions. The names of the accused were written 
after the indictments had been made out, and in a different 
hand and with different ink from that in the body of the 
documents. There were family names presented in a sum- 

1 At his first examination, on the ist of Frimaire in the year III., 
he had been questioned by Forestier in the presence of the latter's 
deputy, Jean Jacques Granger. On that occasion he had been 
taken from the Plessis prison to the Tribunal. (See Chapter IX., 
p. I95-) 

275 



276 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

mary form without the Christian names, descriptions, ages, 
or designation of the place of origin. It had not been 
possible to identify them, from lack of time, between the 
evening and the following morning. 

Fouquier claimed that all the indictments which he 
presented were regular ; that these indictments had been 
written by his secretaries. This was his system — to throw 
all responsibility on others. But these indictments were 
signed by him. The judge did not point this out to him. 
He allowed him to go on speaking. Fouquier declared that 
if these indictments were shown him, he would explain 
what " people affected not to know." 

Never, he said, had he presented blank indictments to 
the judges to sign. But as, after the law of the 22nd of 
Prairial, private preliminary examinations had been sup- 
pressed, the Christian names, ages, descriptions, and places 
of birth could only be filled in after the prisoners had been 
asked to state them. Family names had always been 
inserted in the indictment as well as in the text. 

Never, to his knowledge, had he made any additional 
insertion between the lines of the indictments. 

He did not remember that he had ever made out an 
indictment against a person who had already been con- 
demned. 

The judge asked him whether he had not pleaded in court 
to have carried to the scaffold the corpse of a prisoner 
who had stabbed himself at the moment he heard his 
death-sentence (Valaze, the Girondin Deputy). 

" Having regard to the public clamour," answered 
Fouquier, " and in order to avoid the greater disorders that 
were threatened at the moment when Valaze stabbed 
himself, I believed it prudent to ask that he should be taken 
to the place intended for the execution. I may have been 
mistaken. But a mistake cannot be imputed as a crime. 
I had to execute the judgment of the Tribunal." 

Q. — " Have you demanded the execution of women 
who were pregnant, instead of waiting for the opinion of the 
doctors ? " 



A JUDICIAL ERROR 277 

A. — " I have respected declarations of pregnancy." 

Q. — " Have you ever gone into the jurors' room at the 
moment when they were deliberating-? " 

A. — " I have never gone alone into the room. I have 
never interrupted the dehberations. I have never taken 
part in the jurors' deliberations." 

Q. — " Have you presented an indictment against 155 
persons charged with conspiracy in the prisons ? Was not 
the word, twice, placed alongside three names to indicate 
two persons under a single name, so that the total number 
of persons was 158 instead of 155 ? " 

A. — " I have in fact made out an indictment against 155 
persons charged with conspiracy in the Luxembourg, on the 
i8th of Messidor. According to President Dumas, the 
intention of the Committee of Public Safety was that they 
should all be tried at the same time. But I had been to the 
Committee that evening, and it was decided that there 
should be three trials. I do not know what is meant by the 
word, twice, which cannot have been written by my hand 
or by orders from me. Moreover, the indictments were 
handed into the registry, after the trial. 

" Now, I have all sorts of reasons for suspecting that 
omissions and additions were made at the registry. I can 
be in no way responsible for those that may have been 
made either in the indictments or in other documents. 
Moreover, when I am shown the documents, I shall be in a 
position to give the most precise explanations. But I am 
persuaded that the number in question never exceeded 155. 

" Besides, I have never meddled with the writing out of 
the sentences." 

" In the first sentence on a section of the Luxembourg 
prisoners," asked the judge, " was not a man named Morin 
included, although he was not mentioned in the indict- 
ment ? " 

This was an embarrassing question, for here, certainly, 
there had been a judicial error, and a Morin or Maurin 
had on that day been guillotined instead of another man. 

Fouquier answered imperturbably : "I am always faced 



278 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

with indictments that I have nothing to do with. This 
Morin, so far as I remember, was not tried on the 19th 
but on the 22nd. Before him, a man named Morin, Madame 
du Barry's steward, was tried and condemned. Moreover, 
a Morin, the ex-Marechale de Biron's steward, had been tried 
and condemned at a period which I do not precisely remem- 
ber. The Morin of the Luxembourg Conspiracy had been 
quartermaster in Capet's guards. When the documents 
are shown me, I will give the most precise explanations." 
Were the documents shown to Fouquier in the course 
of the proceedings ? What were his explanations ? In 
regard to this we know nothing. 

Denys Morin, Madame du Barry's servant, had been 
guillotined on the 3rd of Nivose in the year II., more than 
twelve months previously. A Nicolas Morin, a farmer, 
had been acquitted on the 26th of Germinal in the year II. 
A Jacques Morin, a farmer and carter, had been set free on 
the 6th of Fructidor in the year II. A Jean Morin, a trooper 
in the Revolutionary army, had also been set free on the nth 
of the same month. A Charles Sosthene Morin, grocer, 
auctioneer and tax-collector, had been guillotined on the 
13th of Messidor in the year II. But the error in regard 
to the persons with which Fouquier was charged, concerned 
Louis Clerc Morin, quartermaster in the King's Guard, 
guillotined on the 22nd of Messidor in the year II., and Jean 
Dominique Maurin, the Marechale de Biron's bookkeeper 
and estate-agent, guillotined, instead of the last mentioned, 
on the 19th of Messidor in the year II. Fouquier's answer, 
on this matter, was decidedly evasive. The cross- examina- 
tion continued. 

" Did not Fouquier demand the punishment of a witness 
who said that no conspiracy existed in the Luxembourg ? " 
" This witness^ was arrested for the evasions, tergiversa- 
tions, ambiguities, and vacillations in his statement, which 
appeared to disclose a dishonest person." 

For his own part, he, Fouquier, took care not to base 
his speech for the prosecution on the conspiracy. He even 
1 The turnkey, Lesenne. 



A MORTAL ENEMY 279 

had on that day, " a very sharp altercation with Dumas " 
regarding the latter's refusal to allow some of the accused 
to defend themselves. 

Before allowing the cross-examination to close, Fouquier 
was desirous of taking his own precautions, and he made the 
following declaration regarding Paris, the registrar, and 
Robert Wolff, the registrar's clerk. He pointed out that 
" Paris, the present registrar of the Tribunal, had declared 
himself to be his mortal enemy, both in public and in 
private." He spoke of the dinners that were held by the 
registrar's clerks (particularly that of the 27th of Frimaire, 
the eve of the day on which he was sent for trial) . At those 
dinners, " they occupied themselves with Fouquier' s trial 
and the means they would take to ruin him." 

" Paris," he said, " has even boasted that if he were 
wanted to hang me, he would pull the cord." 

Fouquier said he employed every means for releasing 
from prison this very man who was to appear against him 
in the capacity of accuser and lover of justice. 

" About three weeks ago," Fouquier went on, " Paris 
went to the Cafe de Chartres, in the Palais Egalite, with 
several persons. There he published and indicated the day 
on which I should be placed on trial. He aggravated the 
alleged crimes that are imputed to me. He went back there 
again and spoke in a perfidious manner and one likely to 
rouse public opinion against me." 

Then came a capital charge. 

" In order more certainly to reach his end, Paris had 
carried off by force, on the 19th of Nivose last, all the 
extracts from the sentences and the receipts of the Com- 
mission of National Revenues which were in the prosecutor's 
office, and which were my guarantee in regard to the trial 
we are dealing with to-day, because I had taken the precau- 
tion of having handed to me each day the extracts from the 
sentences bearing the names of the condemned persons, 
both in order to have those sentences proceeded with, and 
to transmit them to the National Estates and to the Com- 
mission of National Revenues. The number of these docu- 



28o THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

ments has neither been ascertained nor verified. Thus it 
has been within the power of Paris to take away those he 
judged fit. These facts are known to the brothers Toutain,* 
who have done all they could to stop them. They are 
known to Citizen Leblois,^ who had then no position there, 
and to Francois, one of the attendants in the prosecutor's 
office. 

" Moreover, Paris had previously taken away a hundred 
notes of papers relating to cases that had been tried, without 
giving any receipt for them, though I would have given 
these to the constituted authorities as fast as they had been 
transmitted to me. 

" I have learnt that, at the time of the departure of 
Citizen Granger, the Public Prosecutor's deputy who was 
entrusted with the documents relating to the present trial, 
that magistrate had handed them over to Paris and to Wolff ; 
that they had been deposited with them up to the period 
when the trial had been committed to Citizen Cambon. 
One cannot doubt for a moment that they did not neglect 
to read those documents. It was Paris who presented the 
first indictment for signature in court. On the 28th of 
Frimaire, the day when I appeared before the Tribunal, 
it was also Paris who acted officially, for he publicly brought 
into court a bundle of documents which he placed on the 
Public Prosecutor's table. Lastly, he also acted officially 
in this same trial by signing the judgment passed by the 
Tribunal on the 30th of Ventose last, and by writing a letter 
to the Public Prosecutor dated the 2nd or 3rd of the current 
month." 

In accordance with those facts, and others which he 
intended to develop later, Fouquier-Tinville declared that 
he knew no law permitting a witness to act officially, in any 
manner whatsoever, in a trial at which he was a witness. 
Here, in this trial, not only had Paris, Wolff, and others 
acted officially, but they had even displayed, in several 

1 Employees in the prosecutor's office. 

' The Public Prosecutor of the Tribunal established on the 23rd of 
Thermidor, who drew up the first indictment against Fouquier. 



AN ADVOCATE ASSIGNED 281 

public and private places, their excess of hatred against the 
accused, a fact that ought to cause the Tribunal henceforth 
to look on them with suspicion. ^ 

The judge asked Fouquier if he had chosen a defender. 
The ex-Public Prosecutor answered that Citizen Lafleuterie, 
whom he had chosen as his counsel, having informed him 
that he had been summoned as a witness for the defence 
by Citizen Naulin and other fellow-prisoners, and that he 
was too scrupulous to accept the position of defender in 
the case, he knew of nobody else whom he could entrust 
with his defence. An official advocate, Citizen Gaillard,^ 
was assigned to him. 

The list of jurors was then communicated to Fouquier — 
Lapeyre, Bressand, Husson, Tournier, Taillerat, Lebrun, 
Mesange, Bouygues, Duprat, Vignalet, and Laporte. 

He was acquainted with none of those jurors, except 
Duprat. He said that his brothers, the Duprats of Avignon, 
had been tried and condemned, and that he, Fouquier, had 
appeared against them ; that Duprat was an intimate friend of 
Jourdan, who had been condemned and against whom he had 
appeared, etc. For all these reasons he challenged Duprat. 
As regards the others he invited the Tribunal to ask them to 
remember whether they had any relatives or friends or clients 
condemned between March loth, 1793, and the 9th of 
Thermidor, 1794. In case there should be a fresh selection 

* In the course of his trial, on the 22nd of Germinal, Fouquier 
sent a note to the Tribunal, " hoping to convince it that, since his 
imprisonment, documents had been taken away from his room and 
from the registry by Paris, a witness whose hate and partiality 
had been displayed yesterday." Fouquier requested that it might 
please the Tribunal that in his presence and in the presence of the 
Public Prosecutor a search should be made in the judges' rooms for 
papers that might have been hidden in there by Paris. 

The Tribunal immediately acceded to this request. (W. 499, 
dossier 550, p. 3.) 

Paris was heard as a ^vitness at the trial in spite of Fouquier's 
protests. The President read to the jurors the law relating to the 
grounds on which a witness could be challenged, and declared that 
the Tribunal would receive the evidence of Paris. (Archives Na- 
tionales, W. 499, dossier 550, p. 6.) 

* Gaillard de la Ferriere. 



282 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

of jurors, Fouquier challenged in advance Citizen Delorme, 
with whom he had " a very sharp scene in 1790 at the house 
of Commissioner Dubois in the Rue de Chabanais," and for 
further reasons which he enumerated.^ 

On the 8th of Germinal the public proceedings in the trial 
opened in the old Grand Chamber of the Parlement of Paris, 
in that vast hall where Fouquier, Dumas, and Coffinhal had 
sat, with plumed hats on their heads, and their small black 
cloaks over their shoulders. An enormous crowd had 
invaded the court, a curious, attentive, and rather quiet 
crowd. 

Twenty-four prisoners^ took their places on the benches. 
Seated in the front rank, Fouquier had before him a table 
on which the documents which he was to employ in his 
defence were arranged. Two large portfolios served him 
as a desk. He took notes, writing rapidly.^ Whilst he 
wrote, not a single word, either from the President or from a 
witness, escaped him.* 

Fouquier was very thin, very much worn by his imprison- 
ment. But he was neither exhausted nor depressed. He 
had all his faculties about him, that extraordinary gift of 
memory which never failed him when he needed it. He 
was there, thrown back on himself, tense, ready for the 
supreme struggle, for thrust and parry in this judicial duel 
in which he felt that, in spite of everything, the chances 
were all against him. 

The Public Prosecutor's seat, his own former seat, was 
occupied alternately by Judicis and his two deputies, 
Ardenne and Cambon. 

^ Archives Nationales, W. 501, 2nd dossier, p. 38, folio 15. 

" They were Fouquier, DeHege, Delaporte, Foucault, Maire, Scel- 
lier, Harny, Gernier-Launay, and NauHn, ex-judges of the Tribunal 
of the Terror ; Lohier, Trinchard, Leroy, Renaudin, Pigeot, Aubry, 
Vilate, Duplay, Prieur, Chatelet, Brochet, Chretien, Girard, Trey, and 
Ganney, ex-jurors. FeHx, Bra vet, Barbier, Liendon, Didier, and 
Gauthier had fled the country. 

» We know from Mercier that he wrote with extreme rapidity. 
(Vatel : Madame du Barry, III., p. 257.) And see Archives Nationales, 
W. 180, liasse 26. 

* Mercier : Paris pendant la Revolution, II., pp. 127, 128. 





THE TRIAL OF 




UIER-TINVILLE 



THE JURORS 283 

Liger/ the Vice-President, presided over the proceedings, 
with Godart, Grand, Gaillard-Lecart, and Bertrand d'Au- 
bagne as assessors. Fifteen jurors^ were seated facing the 
accused. Very different from the former jurors of the 
Terror, from Chretien the lemonade-seller, Renaudin 
the maker of musical instruments, Vilate the dandy, Duplay 
the carpenter, Prieur the painter, Trey the tailor, etc., 
whom they had before them, these Thermidorian jurors 
were provincials who had come from a distance, strangers 
to the fevers that had shaken Paris during the sixteen months 
of the Terror. They were people who clung to order and 
did not love blood. The violent acts they had witnessed 
in their Departments during the Terror, the denunciations, 
depopulation by the guillotine — these they reprobated. 
They had seen danger and death at close quarters. They 
were determined to cause those who were responsible for 
the system that had been overthrown, to expiate the evil 
they had done. But they would know how to follow the 
proceedings patiently. They did not declare that they were 
convinced by the indictments. They would listen atten- 
tively to the evidence. And at the moment when they gave 
their verdict, they would show themselves moved by feelings 
of moderation, for they would admit extenuating circum- 
stances, and would not condemn in the mass. The advo- 
cates were, Cressend, Villain, Boutroue, Gobert, Gueneau, 
and Domanget. Gaillard de la Ferriere assisted Fouquier. 
Lafieuterie had had to abandon his defence for reasons 
which Fouquier explained at the end of his cross-examina- 
tion on the 6th of Germinal. 

1 He had been President of the Criminal Tribunal of the Loiret. 
In the year VIII., following upon the decrees of the 13th, 14th, 15th, 
1 6th, 17th and i8th of Germinal (April 3 to 8, 1800), Liger-Verdigny 
was appointed a member of the Court of Cassation. He was re- 
elected by the nomination of February 15, 18 15, and remained a 
member of the Court of Cassation until 1830. He then appears in the 
Royal Almanac under the name of Liger de Verdigny. From 1830 to 
1832 he was an honorary counsel, and he does not appear in the Royal 
Ahnanac after this date. He had been a chevalier of the Legion of 
Honour since 1816. 

» Rouitborel Abadie-Verduisant, Cadet, and Gabriel Saint-Horrent 
had been elected as supplementary jurors. 



284 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

Four hundred and nineteen witnesses were to give evidence 
in the trial. The case promised to be a long one. What a 
contrast with those rushed through in a few hours before 
the gth of Thermidor ! 

The proceedings in the trial of Fouquier and his ' ' accom- 
plices " lasted a month and nine days, from the 8th of 
Germinal until the 17th of Floreal. How are we to relate 
these proceedings ? So far as we know there remains no 
written account of them.^ We have to-day only two 
documents bearing upon them — the printed account of 
the trial, and that in Buchez and Roux's Histoire Parle- 
mentaire. Both are open to the suspicion of partiality. 
They are often curtailed, especially towards the end of the 
proceedings. They are inexact on many points, and full of 
printer's errors. Proper names are wrongly spelled. They 
do not give us the answers of the principal prisoner, Fouquier, 
except in unsatisfactory and colourless condensations. 
Fouquier, in spite of his fatigue, must have defended himself 
fiercely, and with talent. 

We believe, then, that his real defence consisted of : (i) 
the memorials he had drawn up and which we have repro- 
duced in full, as they exist among the National Archives, 
written in his own hand ; (2) his answers at the two cross- 
examinations which he underwent and which we have also 
reproduced impartially. 

At the opening of the proceedings, at the hearing on the 
8th of Germinal, a statement was made of the charges 
brought against Fouquier and his accomphces. 

" Citizens and jurors," said Cambon, the Pubhc Prosecu- 
tor's deputy, " I come in the name of the Public Prosecutor 
to unmask great crimes and to denounce great offenders. 

" These crimes are those of the liberticidal faction which, 
by its infamous plots, was able for eighteen months to beat 
down the courage of all, to repress even the energy of the 
national representation, to spread terror and consternation 
on the soil of liberty. 

» Except the official report of the hearing, which is preserved among 
the Archives (W. 499, dossier 550, p. 7). 



THE SCARCITY OF CARTS 285 

" Yes, citizens, whilst on the frontier vaUant defenders 
of our country were cementing young liberty with their 
blood, whilst the noise of their victories was resounding on 
all sides, the most shameful defeats of morahty as well as of 
justice were in this building dishonouring the magistracy 
and degrading the French name."^ 

At the hearing on the 9th, Fouquier, questioned by the 
President on the arrest of Lesenne, the turnkey of the 
Luxembourg, 2 who had declared that he had no acquaintance 
with the conspiracy in the prisons, answered : " The witness 
shuffled in his evidence. He contradicted himself. I never 
asked for more than his provisional arrest. But Dumas, 
whose ferocity everybody knows (laughter and murmurs), 
Dumas had the judgment made out in a different sense. 
Then that is not my fault."^ 

Later, he said : "I received the orders of the two 
Committees." 

On the subject of the carts which he ordered in the 
morning without knowing whether any persons would be 
condemned during the day, he answered : "It was because 
of the scarcity of carts." 

Then he pointed out that the witness who was accusing 
him (Senar), " had let slip the words, the Thermidorian 
faction," an insult to the Government actually in power. 

As regards the sentence on the Comte de Fleury, who was 
sent to death in a red shirt, Fouquier denied all responsi- 
bility. Gastrez, an employee in the Commission of Public 
Instruction, charged him with this, and formally identified 
him as having said to Dumas : " This gentleman seems to 
me to be in a hurry. I am going to send for him." 

" You are Fouquier," said Gastrez. " You were a little 
stouter then, but I recognise you." 

Fouquier : " I do not remember that trial." 

(And he searched for it in his portfolios.) 

» Buchez and Roux, XXXIV,, p. 292, and VV. 499, dossier 550, 
p. 7. 

* He was the first witness to give evidence. 

* Ibid., p. 304. 



286 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

In general, to the evidence concerning the conspiracies 
in the prisons, the lists, and the amalgamations, he answered 
that the facts did not concern him, that he had had his orders. 
He denied the remarks attributed to him, or said he did not 
remember them. Or he quoted, with precision, the resolu- 
tions of the Committee of Public Safety, that of the 17th of 
Messidor, for example, relating to the 155, in order to shelter 
himself. Or he said : " I was not sitting on that occasion." 

" What answer have you in regard to Morin ? " Cambon 
asked him. 

Fouquier : " The witness did not say that it was I who 
was sitting. Besides, I was the prosecutor. I was neither 
judge nor juror. Moreover, I deny the remarks. Morin, 
the quartermaster, is on the list." 

This was not answering the question. For an examination 
of the indictments proves to-day that there had been a 
mistake in the persons, and that that mistake was to be 
attributed to the negligence or precipitation of Fouquier 
and his subordinates. 

Moreover, he replied to Baraguay d'Hilliers, ex-General 
of the Army of the Rhine, who gave evidence against him 
in regard to the Luxembourg conspiracy : 

" The witness gave his evidence with resentment. He had 
been placed on trial. And yet he had been acquitted." 

To which Baraguay d'Hilliers rejoined : " Fouquier 
had relations with Boyaval at the Luxembourg in order to 
obtain lists of proscribed persons. It was Boyaval him- 
self who told me so."^ 

Later, Leroy, caUed "Tenth of August," having exclaimed: 
" You are vihfying the institution of the jury ! " Fouquier 
added. " It will be ended all the sooner. You must 
condemn us. Condemn us." 

He laid stress on the immoral character of the spy, 
Benoit, the maker of lists. " I never wished to listen to 
him." 

Benoit, who was in court as a witness, declared : "I 
have never made a list." 

» Buchez and Roux, XXXIV., p. 332. 



FOUQUIER UNDER EXAMINATION 287 

Fouquier then, in order " to roast " Benoit, got Cambon 
to read some compromising and instructive letters written 
by that witness. 

Other witnesses, one of whom was Vonschriltz, a carpenter 
and police inspector, affirmed that they had seen Fouquier 
come to Bicetre, and that he had a Ust ; that Fouquier 
caused four or five informers to be sent down to him and 
had their irons removed.^ 

Fouquier answered : "I have carried out the orders of 
the superior authorities . " 

In the course of the long discussion that took place 
on the affair of the Luxembourg Conspiracy, the President 
asked Fouquier : " Why did you not arrange for the court 
to hear all the witnesses who were summoned to give evi- 
dence at the time of the first ' batch' ? " 

Fouquier : " I always asked for this to be done. I asked 
on that occasion for all the witnesses to be heard. I do not 
know why they were not heard. It sometimes happened 
that the President closed the case." 

The President : " You ought then to have asked for and 
demanded the continuation of the hearing of the witnesses." 

Fouquier : "I did so." 

Cambon : "I have in my hand the official report of the 
hearing ; there is no mention in it of that demand." 

Fouquier : " That is an omission. I was not com- 
missioned to make out the official report. I did not sign 
it. Besides, the matter must have reference to the circum- 
stances and the persons who assisted me."^ 

In regard to the condemnation of Lomenie de Brienne, a 
witness declared : " I remember the trial of Ehsabeth, Louis 
Capet's sister. The ex-Comte de Lomenie de Brienne was 
tried with her. Dumas reproached the ex-Comte de Brienne 
with having been a Minister in 1788, with having caused 
himself to be invited to be Mayor by forty neighbouring 
Communes, and he was guillotined." 

Fouquier : " On that day I returned from the Committee 

1 Buchez and Roux, XXXIV., pp. 349-355. 
» Buchez and Roux, XXXIV., p. 365. 



288 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

of Public Safety at five o'clock in the morning. I was 
unable to appear in court. I recommended that the greatest 
precaution should be taken regarding several of the 
accused. I wished to save Brienne. The invitations of 
the forty Communes were produced. They were handed 
over by a resolution of the Government. I may add that 
Brienne was charged with being the accompUce of the 
woman Canisy, his niece." ^ 

At the same day's hearing, a witness, Thierret-Grandpre, 
said that on the 26th of Prairial Fouquier had gone to 
Bic^tre along with Lanne to draw up a list of thirty-three 
alleged conspirators, and he read the following letter, written 
and signed in Fouquier' s hand : 

" The Public Prosecutor of the Revolutionary Tribunal to 
Citizen Lanne, assistant in the Commission of Civil Adminis- 
tration, Police, and Tribunals. 

" Paris, 26th of Prairial of the year H. 
" Citizen, enclosed is a statement of the suspected persons 
who were found in our inquiry, made to-day at Bicetre. 
I invite you to send me, to-morrow at latest, all the docu- 
ments concerning this case, especially the resolutions. 

" Greeting and fraternity, 
" A. Q. Fouquier."^ 

On the next day Lanne filled in the blank space in the 
resolution which the Commission had passed the day before, 
inserted in it the thirty-three names, and sent to Fouquier 
the resolution of the Committee of Public Safety of the 25th 
of Prairial, and that which the Commission had just passed. 
Those thirty-three persons were tried, as we have seen. 
Fouquier answered " that he had no initiative." 

At the opening of the hearing of the i8th of Germinal, 
Fouquier explained that he found himself in an awkward 

> Anne Marie Charlotte de Lomenie, the wife of Canisy, was guillo- 
tined on the 2ist of Floreal in the year II. Buchez and Roux, 
XXXIV., p. 421. 

' Buchez and Roux, XXXIV., p. 432. 



"THE RED SHIRTS" 289 

position owing to the arrest of CoUot d'Herbois, Billaud 
Varenne, and others.^ He had not foreseen this when he 
wrote his memorials for his defence. 

Thierriet-Grandpre spoke of Lomenie de Brienne, and said 
that he enjoyed an honourable reputation, that he was 
regarded as the father of the unfortunate. 

Fouquier answered that this was true ; that " imbued 
with respect and veneration for ex-Minister Lomenie, he had 
made arrangements to sit at his trial and to lay stress on all 
that was memorable and advantageous to that worthy 
ex-Minister ; but that having been prevented in his laudable 
intentions, Liendon, his deputy, had anticipated him in court 
and had succeeded in having the case tried before his arrival 
at the Tribunal, so that he had not been able to carry out 
his good intentions towards him." 

Then Cambon said : "I have in my hand the indictment 
presented and signed by you against Lomenie. . . 
You have just uttered a pompous and merited eulogy of 
ex-Minister Lomenie, and yet, in your indictment, you make 
it out to be only a crime for him that he captured votes in 
order to become Mayor of his Commune, and that he asked 
for invitations from neighbouring Communes. Why, then, 
do you shelter yourself to-day under his merit in order 
to excuse a conviction that your eulogies now destroy ? 
Did your heart formerly deny what your mouth utters 
to-day ? "^ 

We have not Fouquier's answer. 

On the subject of " the red shirts," he answered that the 
sentence which condemned them had provided that they 
should be clad in that garment which was reserved for 
assassins. 

Cambon : " Here is the minute of the sentence which 
states that, in accordance with the jury's verdict, the sixty- 
nine {sic) ^ were not convicted of an individual assassination 
but of having conspired to assassinate the people by 

1 Condemned to be deported. 

2 Buchez and Roux, XXXIV., p. 441. 
* In reality there were 54. 



290 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

famine. The sentence does not contain this provision for 
red shirts." 

Fouquier : "I claim that this is a mistake of the 
registrar, because the sentence so provided." 

Harny, one of the accused, who had been one of the 
judges in that case, said : " The Tribunal did not so provide. 
I expressed my astonishment at it, but I was told that it did 
not concern me."^ 

Regarding the charge of having influenced the jurors in 
the case of Danton and the Dantonists, Fouquier explained 
his attitude thus : "The jurors were getting impatient in their 
room because the hearing did not begin. We went up there, 
I think, on the i6th, to inform them of the reply of the 
Committee of Public Safety." 

It was pointed out to Fouquier and to Herman that they 
ought to have had the reply of the Committee read publicly 
in court. They answered that that reply was only verbal, 
and stated that the Deputies demanded by the accused should 
not be heard as witnesses. ^ Fouquier added : " It was Voul- 
land and Amar who brought the decree. ... I do not 
remember that Danton was deprived of the right to speak. 
I made no summary in that case." 

The registrars of the Tribunal, Tavernier, Paris, Wolff, 
and Neirot, gave evidence that went severely against him. 
He cried out : "I have learned that Fabricius (Paris) bears 
me ill-will. I am surprised at it. I did all I could to get 
him out of prison. A warrant was issued by the Committee 
for the arrest of you, Tavernier, and for Wolff's arrest. I 
had that decision revoked." 

Then he exclaimed : " It is Danton's trial that has 
brought us here. This is our reward for saving these 
fellows . ' ' (Murmurs) . ^ 

Long and tiring hearings succeeded one another. Some- 
times a juror would fall ill and be replaced by one of the four 
supplementary jurors. The jury pointed out to the Tribunal 

1 Buchez and Roux, XXXIV., p. 463. 
« Buchez and Roux, XXXIV., p. 477. 
» Buchez and Roux, XXXIV., p. 6. 



FOUQUIER'S COURAGE 291 

"' that a matter of this importance demands attention and, 
consequently, rest." Some sessions were adjourned to the 
next day or the day after. 

The Convention having passed a decree that the Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal should remain in permanence until the 
end of the trial, Ardenne, the Pubhc Prosecutor's deputy, 
addressed the court on the ist of Floreal to say that " the 
painful position of the accused during the hearings neces- 
sarily demands a rest ; justice, moreover, should give them 
time to think over their defence. It will, therefore, be 
perfectly in the spirit of the law if we devote to this trial 
all the time that our moral and physical strength allows 
us." 

Fouquier, on the 19th of Germinal, after a long and bitter 
discussion with the witness, Robert Wolff, became indis- 
posed, and the proceedings were brought to an end for that 
day. However, on the morrow, he recovered all his energy 
to argue with the witness, Paris. ^ 

Mercier, in his Paris 'pendant la Revolution, has given us 
some details concerning Fouquier' s attitude during the 
hearing. " He was like Argus in the fable, all eyes and ears. 
His attention did not appear to relax for a moment during 
this long case. It is true that he pretended to sleep during 
the Public Prosecutor's summing up, but this pretended sleep 
was only to mislead spectators. He wanted to have an 
appearance of cahn when hell was already in his heart. His 
fixed look made one lower one's eyes in spite of oneself. 
When he prepared to speak, he frowned with his eyebrows 
and wrinkled his forehead. His voice was loud, rough, and 
threatening ; it suddenly passed from shrill tones to deep, 
and from these to the lowest whisper. He Hstened to him- 
self speaking when he asked a question. No one could put 
more assurance into his denials, or more skill in the distorting 
of facts, isolating them, and, above all, marshalling them so 
as to prove an alibi. When a judge showed him a blank 
sentence signed in his hand, he denied his signature in a firm 
voice, and did not tremble before that accusing witness. 
1 Archives Nationales, W. 499, dossier 550, p. 6. 



292 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

When the proof was irresistible he filled the whole court 
with his terrible roars. "^ 

The ushers give evidence against him just as the regis- 
trars did. 

Boucher (an ex-usher, then a registrar's clerk in the 
Tribunal) said : " Fouquier complained that we did not 
work fast enough. ' You do not keep up,' he used to say. 
' I want two hundred to two hundred and fifty each 
decade.' " ^ 

Tavernier, also an ex-usher and then a registrar's clerk, 
said that the jurors chosen by Fouquier were called the solid 
men. 

Fouquier answered that when jurors were wanted, they 
were taken from those in the following column ; that he 
knew neither strong jurors nor weak jurors.^ 

In regard to the trial and sentence of the Marquise 
de Feuquieres, guillotined without witnesses appearing 
against her, before the documents arrived, without having 
signed the official report of the preHminary examination, 
and while Chateau, the usher, was by the Public Prosecutor's 
orders at Chaton to look for a document and to summon 
witnesses, Fouquier answered Ardenne : " If from the pro- 
ceedings that took place, and if from the confession of this 
woman, the jurors came to a decision, there is no crime." 

Ardenne : " Did you mention to the jurors, during the 
proceedings, that you were waiting for documents and 
witnesses concerning the woman Feuquieres ? " 

Fouquier : "If you are attacking the trials, I can no 
longer reply." 

Ardenne : " We are not revising the trials here. But 
I point out that you ought to have procured and presented 
the documents for the prosecution and the defence, and pro- 
duced the appointed witnesses. I tell you, therefore, that 
you have carried out your duties in a dishonest manner by 

* Mercier : Paris pendant la Revolution, II., pp. 127, 128. Quoted 
by Campardon : Le Tribunal Revolutionnaire, II., p. 209. 
" Buchez and Roux, XXXIV., p. 12. 
3 Buchez and Roux, XXXIV., p. 15. 



ARDENNE'S ARRAIGNMENT 293 

not presenting this letter. If crime ought to be punished, 
we ought to endeavour to discover innocence by every 
possible means. I tell you that your precipitation is a 
crime." 

Fouquier : " This woman was arraigned before the 
Tribunal. The proceedings opened. She confessed. There 
were no further proceedings. You are here trying the Tri- 
bunal as if a Revolutionary Tribunal were an ordinary 
tribunal ! You ought to refer to the Revolutionary laws." 

Ardenne : "No matter how imperious circumstances 
then were, and no matter how severe these laws, you ought 
not to had added cruelty to them. You ought rather to 
have carried your head to the scaffold." (Loud applause.) 

Fouquier : " You are holding me responsible for the 
sentences." 

Ardenne : " No. But I charge you with having trans- 
formed ordinary deeds into counter-revolutionary offences, 
and with having been at least one of the principal agents 
of the former Committees of Government. Besides, you 
were not ignorant of the decree of amnesty passed after 
these events. "1 

At the hearing of the 25th of Germinal, nine other prisoners 
were brought in and associated as accomplices with those 
who were being tried, viz. : Boyaval, Beausire, Benoit, 
Valagnos, Guyard, and Verney, former pohce spies and 
notorious informers ; then Lanne, Herman's assistant on 
the Commission for Civil Affairs, Police, and Tribunals ; 
lastly, Herman himself, and Dupaumier, a former pohce 
official. They passed from the position of witnesses to that 
of prisoners on trial, and this owing to their answers and the 
very compromising documents that had been brought to- 
gether against them. The part they played in the business 
of the conspiracies in the prisons seems to have been mon- 
strous. As for Herman, it was evident that he was " pay- 
ing " for his attitude during the proceedings at Danton's 
trial. During the sessions that were to follow, these new 

1 Buchez and Roux, XXXV., p. 18, and Archives Nationales, W. 
499, dossier 550, p. 6, folio 19. 



294 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

prisoners were on trial, and fresh light was thrown on 
this dark affair. Once more Danton's trial was referred 
to, and Herman affirmed that " Danton had an oppor- 
tunity to speak several times." 

Didier-Thirion, a representative of the people, objected 
that Danton had not answered the third charge in the 
indictment against him, and that he had not spoken of the 
Belgian affair before he was deprived of the right to speak. 

Herman : "I knew nothing of Belgium. The accused 
were not deprived of the right to speak. At the end of the 
period appointed by law, on the fourth day, I asked the jurors 
if they were sufficiently informed to give their verdict. 
They answered in the affirmative." 

Paris : " Danton was deprived of the right to speak. 
Herman and Fouquier went into the jurors' room and told 
the jurors to say that they were sufficiently informed." 

Fouquier : " Paris was Danton's friend ; it is Danton's 
death they want to avenge." ^ 

There was a certain number of other cases about which 
the witnesses gave evidence, and this evidence was over- 
whelmingly against Fouquier. These were the Sallier case 
(ist of Floreal year H.), the Freteau case (26th of Prairial 
year II.), the Peres case (i8th of Messidor year II.), the Saint- 
Pern case (ist of Thermidor year II.), the Maille case (6th 
of Thermidor year II.), and the Puy de Verine case (9th of 
Thermidor year II.). 

We have seen in an earlier part of this work how Henry 
Guy Sallier, an ex-noble and President of the Cour des Aides 
of Paris, had been guillotined in a " batch " of members of 
the Paris Parlement condemned for having protested against 
the decrees of the National Assembly in 1790. It was his 
son, Guy Marie, who was aimed at. There had been a 
mistake as to identity. 

Guy Marie SalHer gave evidence at the trial in a letter 
in which he charged Fouquier with having committed a wrong 
act in arraigning the President of the Cour des Aides instead 
of a member of the Parlement. 

^ Buchez and Roux, XXXV., p. 130. 



THE FRETEAU CASE 



295 



To this Fouquier answered that they were making him 
responsible for the proceedings ; that they would finish 
trying him all the sooner ; that he had no more to say — he 
was ready. ^ 

Concerning the case of Freteau, the ex-councillor of the 
Parlement of Paris who was acquitted on the 27th of Floreal 
in the year II., but whom Fouquier had nevertheless kept 
in prison and again brought to trial, and who had been 
condemned to death on the 22nd of Prairial in the year II., 
the Tribunal heard the evidence of Sezille, an official de- 
fender, which has already been quoted. ^ Fouquier answered : 
" The Freteau case does not concern me ; on the second 
occasion he was arraigned for another offence ; I do not 
remember having refused to send the warrant for Freteau's 
release." 

But a witness, Didier Jourdeuil, chief registrar of the 
Tribunal of the Third Arrondissement, formerly a juror 
of the Revolutionary Tribunal until the 23rd of Prairial, 
revealed that the juror Girard, then on the benches of 
the accused, said to him : " Do you not know that Freteau 
has an income of sixty thousand livres ? ' ' 

Thierriet-Grandpre said that one morning Fouquier said 
to him in a heated tone : " Do you know what they did 
yesterday ? They acquitted Freteau, that ex-councillor of 
the Parlement, that Deputy of the Constituent Assembly, 
that known counter-revolutionary. But I swear on the 
word of a PubUc Prosecutor that that scoundrel will be taken 
again in a few days, and that once in my grip he shall not 
escape again 1 " 

Fouquier denied this remark, and said that Freteau had 
been tried for another offence.^ 

Regarding the case of Peres, a former councillor of the 
Toulouse Parlement, who was guillotined without having been 
included either in the questions propounded to the jury or 
in the indictment, and on the authority of a blank sentence, 
Ardenne remarked to Fouquier that in this matter he had 

1 Buchez and Roux, XXXV., p. loi. « Chapter VIII., p. 189. 

s Buchez and Roux, XXXV., pp. 75 and 97, 



296 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

deceived the Convention by giving it false information, and 
he ordered the proofs of Peres' good citizenship to be 
read. 

Fouquier threw all responsibility on Liendon, who sat 
on that day. 

Ardenne thereupon replied to him, pointing out that, 
in the papers concerning the members of the Toulouse 
Parlement, there was no document for the prosecution, 
whilst there was a crowd of documents for the defence 
which he had not presented.^ 

In the matter of Saint-Pern, the son, who had been guillo- 
tined instead of his father on the ist of Thermidor, Madame 
de Saint-Pern, Cornulier's widow, appeared in person at 
the session of the ist of Floreal. 

" On the ist of Thermidor I appeared here on trial along 
with my grandfather, my father, mother, brother, husband, 
and several other prisoners. My brother, aged seventeen, 
against whom there was no indictment, was condemned to 
death instead of my father, aged fifty-five, who regained his 
freedom after the 9th of Thermidor. Neither my husband 
nor I received indictments. My husband refused to go into 
court without one. We were brought one in which it was 
said that we had assassinated the people on August 10." 

Ardenne read the documents relating to this trial. In the 
indictment, only Saint-Pern and his wife were mentioned. 
The son was not included in the indictment nor in the list 
of charges. The jury's verdict contained, "J. B. Saint- 
Pern, aged seventeen, unemployed, born at Rennes." " The 
Tribunal condemned the son instead of the father." (Mur- 
murs of horror.) 

Madame de Saint-Pern then addressed Fouquier. 

" Why did you not also place on trial those who were 
named in the indictment, Boucher, Custine, and Thomas, 
for instance ? " 

And she named the jurors who sat in that case, Renaudin, 
Chatelet, and Prieur. " I remember their names because 
when my husband was going to execution he handed me 
^ Buchez and Roux, XXXV., p. 141. 




BERTRAND BARERE 



JUDGES MERELY FIGURE HEADS 297 

some of his hair in a paper which turned out to be the 
hst of the jurors for that day." 

Ardenne : " The judges who sat on the ist of Thermidor 
are Harny, Lohier, and Dumas." 

Fouquier : "I did not sit." 

Lohier : "I have nothing to do with the indictment." 

Harny : " After the 22nd of Prairial the judges here 
were merely figure-heads." ^ 

In the matter of young de MaiUe, who was condemned to 
death as a conspirator for having thrown a rotten herring 
at the head of a turnkey in Saint-Lazare, his mother, 
Madame de Maille appeared, and was asked by Ardenne : 
*' Can you prove that your son was only sixteen years old ? " 

The witness produced a copy of his birth certificate 
certifying that he was born on August 25, 1777. And he 
had been condemned to death on the 6th of Thermidor in 
the year II. 

Fouquier answered : "If young Maille is included in the 
indictment, the reason is that he was impeached by a 
resolution of the Committee of Public Safety." 

Ardenne : "I submit to Fouquier that no resolution of 
the Committee of Public Safety is to be found among the 
documents relating to the case, and that there is no date on 
this indictment." 

Fouquier : " There ought to be a list on which is written, 
* To be sent to the Public Prosecutor.' It is signed by three 
members of the Committee." 

Ardenne : " It is not in existence." 

Fouquier : " Documents have been taken away. That 
being so, I have nothing more to say." ^ 

Ardenne read the article in the indictment which con- 
cerned the case of Loizerolles, the father, who, on the 
eve of Robespierre's fall, was guillotined instead of his son. 
We have already discussed this case.^ Ardenne added that 
the warrant bore the words " the girl Loizerolles," 

1 Buchez and Roux, XXXV., p. 92. 

• Buchez and Roux, XXXV., p. 57 and following. 

3 See Chapter III., p. 99 and note p. 98. 



298 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

" There was no girl LoizeroUes brought to trial," answered 
Fouquier. " It was the son. After the law of the 22nd of 
Prairial, no preliminary examinations were held. Ushers 
or other persons were sent to the prisons, whose duty it 
was to take the prisoners' names and bring them to the 
Tribunal. The person who went to Lazare took the father 
for the son. My deputy, I think it was Liendon, ought 
to have stopped the proceedings against the father." ^ 

When, at the evening hearing, on the 2nd of Floreal, 
a witness^ charged Fouquier with having said concerning a 
paralysed woman, " It is not the tongue, it is the head we 
want," Fouquier denied the fact. But Cambon imme- 
diately said : " Fouquier has just told you that he had never 
placed paralysed persons on trial. I am going to show that 
he placed on trial not only paralysed persons, but also a 
man who was deaf, blind, and in his second childhood." 

He then spoke of M. Durand Puy de Verine and read the 
certificates relating to his case. 

Fouquier answered : " Those certificates ought to have 
been presented. I cannot be responsible for everything. I 
do not know, besides, whether I was sitting on that day. 
They were not charged with conspiracy. They were im- 
peached by the Committee." 

And (what seems to contradict his statement a moment 
before that he did not know whether he was sitting on that 
day) he added : " Besides, that bhnd man did not seem to 
be in his second childhood. Moreover, he confessed in court." 

But Cambon had the official report of the case, and he 
read the names of the members who composed the court on 
that day, " Dumas, Maire, FeUx, judges. Fouquier, Public 
Prosecutor." ^ 

Among his witnesses for the defence, Fouquier had 
summoned Carnot, one of the members of the Committee of 
Public Safety whose orders he has executed ; but on the 12th 

» Buchez and Roux, XXXIV., p. 439. 

^ Retz, a merchant, formerly steward of the Hospice de I'EvSche. 
3 Buchez and Roux, XXXV., p. 137, and see the of&cial report in 
W. 433, No'. 973. 



FOUQUIER ADDRESSES THE COURT 299 

of Floreal (May i), at the morning hearing, the President 
read a letter from Carnot, apologising for not being able to 
come, and enclosing a certificate of illness. 

Fouquier then declared that " he abandoned his 
witnesses." The hearing of evidence came to an end on 
that day.i 

At five o'clock in the evening, Cambon, the Public Prose- 
cutor's deputy, summed up for the prosecution. Fouquier 
slept. He was heard in his general defence from eight 
o'clock until ten o'clock. On the 13th, at nine o'clock in 
the morning, he continued his defence until half-past eleven. 
Naulin, Herman, Leroy, Lanne, Chretien, SceUier, and 
Vilate spoke afterwards. On the 14th, at half-past nine in 
the morning, the other prisoners were heard. In the evening 
Garnier-Launay, Delaporte, Trinchard, and Dupaumier 
defended themselves. Guyard and Verney entrusted their 
defence to their advocates. 

Fouquier-Tinville addressed the court. He said that part 
of his defence was lacking. This was the evidence of Bil- 
laud-Varenne, CoUot d'Herbois, and Barere, who had been 
deported, and that of the members of the former Committees 
of Government who were then in prison. 

"It is not I who ought to be arraigned here, but the 
chiefs whose orders I have executed. I have acted only in 
virtue of the laws of the 14th of Frimaire and of the 23rd of 
Ventose, laws passed by a Convention invested with full 
power. Through the absence of those members, I find myself 
the head of a conspiracy that I have never known. Here I 
am, a target for the calumny of a people always eager to 
find persons guilty. (Vehement murmurs.) Only men of 
ill-will can find what I say to be wrong." 

Afterwards he replied to several facts that had been 
alleged against him. 

On the morning of the 15th, Gaillard de la Ferriere, 
his advocate, spoke on his behalf. The other defenders 
addressed the court on behalf of their cHents. In the 
evening, Cressend, Gueneau, and Domanget spoke. 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 499, No. 550, pidce 7, p; 47. 



300 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

On the i6th, at nine o'clock in the morning, Domanget 
continued his speech until eleven o'clock. Leroy, Fouquier, 
Ganney, and Valagnos made some observations, and 
Fouquier again addressed the court, and presented to the 
jury some facts in his defence. 

The pleadings closed at eleven o'clock. The Tribunal 
declared that the jury should not disperse until the verdict 
were given. The President summed up at the evening ses- 
sion. The questions were propounded. The jurors retired 
to their room to consider their verdict at nine o'clock in the 
evening, and at noon on the 17th they came back to declare 
their verdict. This declaration lasted until three o'clock. 
The Tribunal retired to the Council Chamber to consider 
it. It came back at five o'clock. The accused were brought 
into court. Judgment was pronounced.^ 

Fouquier-Tinville was convicted of machinations and plots 
tending to favour the liberticidal plots of the enemies of the 
people and the Republic, with provoking the dissolution 
of the national representation and the overthrow of Republi- 
can government, with exciting citizens to arm against 
one another, particularly by causing the deaths, through 
the disguised form of a trial, of an innumerable crowd of 
French people of all ages and both sexes ; of inventing, for 
this purpose, conspiracies in various houses of detention 
in Paris ; of making out and causing to be made out, in 
those various houses of detention, lists of proscribed persons, 
etc. ; of having acted with evil intentions. He was unani- 
mously condemned to death by the votes of all the eleven 
jurors. 2 

Foucault, Scellier, Garnier-Launay, Leroy, called " Tenth 
of August," Renaudin, Vilate, Prieur, Chatelet, Girard, 
Boyaval, Benoit, Lanne, Vernier, Dupaumier, and Herman 
were convicted of having been accomplices in Fouquier's 
machinations and plots, and of having acted with evil 
intentions. They were condemned to death. 

Maire, Harny, Deliege, Naulin, Delaporte, Lohier, Trin- 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 499, dossier 550, piece 7, p. 57. 

2 Archives Nationales, W. 499, dossier 550, p. 13. 



THE CONDEMNED 301 

chard, Brochet, Chretien, Ganney, Trey, Guyard, and 
Valagnos were not convicted of being principals, but of 
being accomplices in those machinations and plots. They 
had not acted with evil intentions. They were acquitted. 
Duplay and Beausire were also acquitted.^ 

It was six o'clock in the evening. The Courrier Ripubli- 
cain tells us that when the verdict was announced Fouquier 
appeared to be " furious." Scellier hurled a pamphlet 
which he held in his hand at the President's head. Herman 
took off his hat " in a moment of rage " and flung it out of 
the window. Most of the condemned persons called the 
judges and jurors scoundrels, and predicted for them a 
death similar to that which they were going to experience. 
" Yet forty days," they exclaimed, " and Nineveh shall be 
destroyed ! "^ 

As for the crowd that filled the court, it seemed to have 
been moved by various feelings. Some police inspectors 
wrote in their report of the day : " Yesterday (i6th of 
Floreal in the year III., May 5, 1795), Fouquier-Tinville's 
case was talked about in several cafes. Opinions on this 
matter were very much divided. Some citizens held that 
this scoundrel and his accomplices were to be sentenced 
to death. Others maintained that the Convention had 
provided otherwise, that it had given orders that they 
should only be condemned to deportation, that this measure 
was of importance in order not to expose Fouquier to the 
public gaze, for he would not fail to disclose many horrors 
that it was the Government's interest to keep secret."^ 

The condemned persons asked to be executed that same 
evening. But it was late. Twihght was coming on, and the 
executioner was not to be found. The execution had to 
be postponed until the following morning. 

Fouquier-Tinville then wrote these few words which 
have been preserved for us : 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 499, dossier 550, p. 15. 
* Courrier Repuhlicain for the 9th of Floreal, quoted, by Aulard : 
Paris sous la Reaction Thermidorienne, I., p. 707. 
3 Ibid:, p. 701. 



302 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

" I have nothing to reproach myself with : I have always 
conformed to the laws ; I have never been the creature 
of Robespierre or Saint- Just ; on the contrary, I have 
been four times on the point of being arrested. I die for 
my country and without reproach : I am satisfied ; my 
innocence will be recognised later. 

" A. Q. FOUQUIER."! 

On the i8th of Floreal (May 7, 1795), early in the morn- 
ing, the quays and streets adjoining the House of Justice 
and the Place de Greve were black with people. The immense 
crowd was waiting for the arrival of the carts. Before the 
Hotel de Ville, the scaffold reared itself up in the dazzling 
light of day. " The spirit which seemed to animate this 
multitude was not that ferocious joy which joy (sic) inspired 
in the cannibals who were the daily spectators of the Revolu- 
tionary butcheries ; the curiosity which leads us to go and see 
extraordinary monsters seemed to be the only feehng that 
reigned in this crowd of individuals of every position, 
and age, and of both sexes. "^ 

Among the groups only one voice was heard : " He has 
deserved it. He was given plenty of time and every means 
of defending himself." And many people told how " the 
monster " had deprived them of a friend, a father, or a 
relative. Some congratulated themselves on having escaped 
his carts by a miracle. He was called " a man-eater." 

The windows were filled with curious persons of both 
sexes, " on whose faces one read that satisfaction which 
the destruction of crime procures to virtue, "^ 

Suddenly, in the midst of the crowd, above their heads, 
the three carts were seen advancing. Fouquier-Tinville 
was in the last. A torrent of invectives and insults poured 
upon him. Desperate voices cried out to him : " Give me 
back my father, give me back my family, give me back my 
brother, give me back my friend, my wife, my sister, my 

1 Archives Nationales, W. 499, dossier 550, p. 41. 
* Messager du Soir for the 19th of Floreal, quoted by Aulard : 
Paris sous la Reaction Thermidorienne, p. 707. 
» Messager du Soir for the 19th of Floreal. 



THE EXECUTION 303 

husband, my mother, my children ! " Others jeered : " They 
are going to deprive you of the right to speak ! " "In 
two minutes the pleadings come to an end ! " "Is your 
conscience sufficiently enhghtened ? " "The people are 
going to fire an uninterrupted volley in its turn ! " " Go, 
scoundrel, and join your victims ! "^ 

Shrill cries and cheers of triumph were raised. The 
multitude rocked in continuous movement. Fouquier was 
pale and livid, all the muscles of his face contracted, his eyes 
" bloodshot." Doubtless he had wept as he thought of his 
wife, of his sons, of his children, of the beings whom he was 
leaving in the most frightful destitution. Some thought 
they saw him smile and sneer. A journalist heard him 
answer the groans with these words : " Vile riff-raff, go 
and look for bread ! " The people cried out, " Long hve 
justice ! " 

The three carts stopped before the scaffold. The con- 
demned men ahghted from them. One after another, they 
were balanced beneath the bloody triangle of the guillotine. 
Fouquier-Tinville was executed last. The people howled 
and asked his head to be shown to them. " The executioner 
seized it and displayed it to the eager gaze of the public."^ 

It was eleven o'clock in the morning. The crowd with- 
drew slowly. It flowed over the Place, along the quays, 
through the streets, over the bridges, commenting on the 
events, quiet or noisy, satisfied with the execution, and 
pleased with the fine day beneath the Floreal sun. 

But, not far off, in a modest lodging in the Rue de la Harpe, 
a widow was weeping. A life of opprobrium, of terrible 
poverty, of absolute, irremediable isolation, was beginning 
for her. She was Madame Fouquier-Tinville. 

^ Messager du Soir for the 19th of Floreal. 
* Courrier RSpublicain for the 19th of Floreal. 



CHAPTER XIV 

CONCLUSION 

" T WAS the agent of the Committees of Government. 

I What would you have done in my place ? " Fou- 

I quier-Tinville said and repeated in his defence 

before the judges. And that, upon the whole, is 

his only defence. 

It is a hundred and eighteen years since the ex-Public 
Prosecutor of the Terror asked that question. Can we 
answer it to-day in a clear, straightforward, and precise 
manner ? 

In order to judge Fouquier-Tinville let us go back to the 
time when he held his terrible magistracy, to that epoch 
when, in Revolutionary France, public order was so pro- 
foundly troubled, when the judicial body was a body of 
servile officials, ready to obey in any way the ephemeral 
chiefs of an unstable Government pledged to the changing 
humours of the multitude and the infuriated struggles of 
parties. 

Fouquier-Tinville was amazed that he was sacrificed by 
the Thermidorians, after the fall of Robespierre, Couthon, and 
Saint-Just, after the exile of Billaud-Varenne, CoUot d'Her- 
bois, and Barere. He advocated in court the sending to the 
scaffold of the victims of the 9th of Thermidor. And on the 
14th of Thermidor he was preparing to be PubUc Prosecutor 
" under the Thermidorian faction." If he had lived and 
kept his place, he would have been a diligent Public Prose- 
cutor under the Directory and he would willingly have made 
an Imperial Procurator under Napoleon. 

For his defence, he claimed that he only executed the 
orders of the Committees of Government. It is true that he 
executed their orders. But he did more than execute them. 

304 



AN APPEAL TO POSTERITY 305 

He outstripped them. In Wolff's words at the trial, Fou- 
quier transformed into a slaughter-house a Tribunal which, 
from the very severity of its functions, ought to have been 
the more scrupulously subject to forms. He alone did not 
transform that Tribunal into a slaughter-house. But, aided 
by President Dumas, Vice-President Coffinhal, and others, 
he contributed to that transformation. 

He defended himself against the charge of having insti- 
gated the deprivation of Danton and the Dantonists of the 
right to plead. He said that he had nothing to do with the 
idea of a conspiracy intended to empty the prisons and 
depopulate France. He affirmed that he had never known 
the police spies, the compilers of lists of proscribed persons. 
He said that he had always been faithful to his duties. He 
had shown himself humane, " especially towards the unfor- 
tunate." The conspiracies in the prisons ? He would 
not have even thought of such a thing but for the law of the 
23rd of Ventose and the Committee of Public Safety " which 
imposed on him the rigorous duty of prosecuting and bringing 
to trial all individuals suspected of such offences." The 
mistakes in drawing up the indictments ? They were due 
to the negligence of his deputies or to errors committed by 
secretaries in the prosecutor's office. He had no knowledge 
that, by his act, one person was ever sent to death instead of 
another. He only carried out orders, for, he said loudly, 
" when the law speaks, the public official must act." And 
he laid informations against Robespierre, Couthon, and 
President Dumas. 

He himself, on the other hand, had resisted, in certain 
cases, the wishes of members of the Committee of Public 
Safety and of the Committee of General Security (this was 
not the case, however, when Vadier made him bring the 
Darmaings and de Pamiers to trial), and he had perpetually, 
courageously, but vainly " demanded the revision of the 
terrible law of the 22nd of Prairial." He appealed to a 
posterity which would avenge " the insults he was made to 
experience " in the course of the proceedings at his trial. 

Certainly these denials are very clear. No prisoner had 



3o6 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

more assurance, defended himself more skilfully, knew better 
how to deny the evidence of facts, to distort them, to present 
them in a special and favourable light, to isolate and destroy 
them, to say that he did not sit on a given day, to throw all 
responsibility on others. None was more stubborn, more 
imperturbable, less disconcerted. His defence was specious. 
But the documents remain among the papers relating to the 
Revolutionary Tribunal, and they bear his signature. There 
are indictments with erasures, filled with commitments, 
unauthorised insertions between the lines, blank spaces. 
There are pleadings for the prosecution against accused 
persons, with no evidence to support them. There are wit- 
nesses for the prosecution summoned by him who were 
nothing more than pohce spies from the prisons or compilers 
of lists. 

He said that he had never brought to trial any persons 
except conspirators, and that he had had orders. But what 
of the paralysed Durand Puy de Verine and his wife ? What 
of Toupin, the Breton, who could not speak French ? What 
of Madame de Lavergne ? Were they conspirators ? He 
did not know that any person had ever been sent to death for 
another. What of M. de Saint Pern ? What of Madame de 
Maille? What of Peres? What of Maurin ? 

He exonerated himself from the charges that weighed on 
him by throwing all responsibility on the members of the 
Committee of Public Safety, on his colleagues, on his 
subordinates. But Robespierre, Couthon, and Saint- Just 
perished on the scaffold. He made himself out to be innocent 
by accusing President Dumas. But Dumas perished on 
the scaffold. It is easy to incriminate dead men. They 
cannot reply. And there were convenient witnesses whom 
he should not have feared to face. Why did he not think of 
incriminating Billaud-Varenne and CoUot d'Herbois until 
they had gone into exile and been deported to Sinnamarie. 

And all the negligence, all the errors, all the omissions that 
were pointed out in the indictments, how easy it was for him 
to attribute them to Liendon, his deputy, who had tied the 
country, and who, consequently, could not contradict him ! 



THE LAWS OF HUMANITY 307 

He invoked the laws. But above the Revolutionary laws, 
are there not superior and imperishable laws which enjoin 
pity, humanity and courage ? If, on the 22nd of Prairial, 
when he recognised that the task imposed on the Revolu- 
tionary Tribunal became henceforth abominable, he had 
firmly given in his resignation, he would undoubtedly have 
been immediately brought to trial and sacrificed. But pos- 
terity would not have to dishonour his memory, as it has 
hitherto done, and that without any party distinction. 

It is a rare thing in studying the men of the Revolution 
for us not to find ourselves faced by most interesting moral 
cases, and it often becomes almost impossible to explain 
them in the final analysis. 

Fouquier-Tinville, thorough instrument of the Terror 
though he was, was accessible to feelings of humanity and 
pity. 

He caused the acquittal of Garce, a captain in the Guyenne 
regiment ; Bayard de la Vingtrie, lieutenant of the bailiwick 
of Bellesme ; Depuis, an employee in the military trans- 
ports ; and Mouchet, the King's architect. He wished to 
save Angram d'Alleray, a former civil lieutenant of the 
Chatelet, who had rendered him services as Procurator at the 
Chatelet. He told him to deny everything.^ 

He signed a letter in which he declared that, in spite of 
the decree of the Convention, General Harville was not 
guilty, " and that it was impossible for him to find grounds 
for an indictment." Montane, the ex-President of the 
Revolutionary Tribunal, owed him his life. And yet they 
did not care for one another, and had had violent arguments. 
Many prisoners who were languishing in prison wrote to him 
asking for a prompt trial ; he systematically ignored them 
in their prisons. Systematically — and humanely — he laid 
on one side the papers concerning them, thus taking into 
consideration the remark of his friend Lavaud, the advocate, 
Volenti mori non creditur. (For he loved Latin quotations, 
having been an excellent student, and he sometimes allowed 

1 But Angram d'Alleray did not pay attention to these overtures, 
and allowed himself to be condemned to death by the Tribunal. 



3o8 THE PUBLIC PROSECUTOR OF THE TERROR 

himself to be disarmed by them.) Last!}-, he saved the 
ninety-four men of Nantes. 

How then are we to explain him ? What was there 
behind that high, firm forehead on which the raised arch of 
the eyebrows marked a note of interrogation ? What was 
the real thought that lived in those restless, attentive eyes, 
in that dark and oblique glance, so fixed that others could 
not hold out against it ? 

We have freely sought, without prejudice or hatred, 
to understand him and to make him understood. And this, 
in the final analysis, is what we think of him. 

There was a conflict in his nature. There was a rupture 
between what pertained to his middle-class, human character 
and what pertained to the official, to the magistrate, to the 
agent of the Committees of Public Safety and of General 
Security, to the priest of Revolutionary justice. Between 
the magistrate and the private man, there had been, in his 
inmost being, terrible conflicts. We have proof of this in 
his letters to his wife. He was good to his wife and children. 
He loved them tenderly. 

But let us endeavour to see into him more clearly still, 
to peer clearly into his very depths. Fouquier was an 
arbitrary, violent man, ill at ease within the narrow hmits 
of a tribunal. He was impatient of his colleagues and his 
official equals, especially Dumas. He had a despotic char- 
acter. And he had the education, all the education and 
habits of a lawyer, of a procurator, of a man brought up and 
trained in legal chicanery and procedure. 

He wanted to win his cases at whatever cost. He confused 
his part as Public Prosecutor with his old quibbling habits. 
He wanted to win his cases, and he won them all with a high 
hand during the Terror and until the gth of Thermidor. 
But he lost one case, his own, and that in spite of a vehement 
defence, full of talent, in which he confronted an entire 
Government. Public vengeance was waiting for him. He 
was hooted at. Too much blood had been shed. Paris 
had had enough of seeing so much blood flowing every day. 

And now must we accept the objection made by Fouquier 



TERRIBLE PROOFS 309 

during his trial that Paris, the registrar, and Wolff, his mortal 
enemies, had had the documents for that trial in their hands, 
and could and did remove some of those that told for his 
defence ? Must we conclude from this that perhaps 
Fouquier was not guilty, that the evidence for the prosecution 
alone remains against him, and that, in this position of the 
question, all definite judgment ought to be suspended ? 

But, as we have said above, the most terrible of the 
proofs that exist against the ex-Public Prosecutor are his 
own indictments. They are to be found among the National 
Archives. Anyone can consult them and verify the frightful 
precipitation with which " batches " of unhappy persons 
were sent to the Revolutionary Tribunal, and thence we 
know to what end — women dragged from their husbands, 
girls from their mothers, old men sent to death. Nothing 
is so moving and so cruel as the reading of those innumerable 
indictments, even for the student whose profession has 
accustomed him to impassiveness. 

As regards the charges brought against Fouquier of having 
been bribed in his duties by more or less considerable sums, 
we think they cannot be maintained. No proof of such 
corruption exists against him, and he died very poor, leaving 
his wife and children in the most appalling want. 

To conclude, it seems to us just and opportune to borrow 
a quotation from Ardenne, the Pubhc Prosecutor's deputy, 
one of the judges belonging to the Thermidorian party 
it is true, but a man who used language as honest as it is 
resolute. 

" No matter how imperious the Revolutionary laws were, 
you ought not to have added to their cruelty. You ought 
rather to have carried your head to the scaffold. I do 
not hold you responsible for the sentences, but I charge you 
with having transformed ordinary deeds into counter- 
revolutionary offences." 

This seems to us to be the only answer to Fouquier's 
question which we placed at the beginning of this conclusion. 



INDEX 



Admiral, Henry, 68-75, 80, 81, 

170, 174, 182 
Adnet, Captain. Louis Claude, 113, 

115, 128, 242, 243 
Advenier, Jean, 240 
Agier, Judge, 217, 275 
Agier's speech at the Revolutionary 

Tribune, 217 
Allain, 96 
Alleray, Denis Fran9ois Angram d', 

62, 307 and note 
Anians, 235 
Amar, Andre, xv., 51, 54, 56, 146, 

150, 151, 176, 181, 223, 225, 234, 

237, 240, 253, 254, 290 
Amboise, Crussol d', loi 
Andre, Thomas, 76 
Arbeltier, 95 

Ardenne, deputy Public Prosecu- 
tor, 282, 291, 309 
Armance, 231 
Armand, Jean Antoine, 176 and 

note 
Attack on Collot d' Herbois, 68-75 
Aubagne, Judge Bertrand d', 275, 

283 
Aubigny. Jean Louis Marie Villain 

d', 163, 244, 261, 262 
Aubry, 249, 270, 271, 273, 282 note 
Aucourt, Henriette Gerard d', 32, 

125, 126, 139, 156-163, 191, 192, 

303, 308, 309 
Audouin, 163 

Aumont's speech at the Revolution- 
ary Tribune, 216 
Auvray, Jean Baptiste Benoit, 166, 

246 

Banville, Citizeness, 187 

Barbier, Judge, 274, 282 note 

Barere, 73, 123, 150, 299, 304 

Bamave, xii 

Barraly, Andre, 271, 272 

Barras, 118, 178 

Barry, Madame du, xvi, 41, 267, 

278 
Barthelemy, 147 



" Batches " of prisoners, 58 and 

note, 59 
Batz, de, attempted to save Louis 

XVL, 72 
Bayle, Moyse, xvi, 151 
Baynard de la Vingtrie, Lieutenant, 

307 
Beausire, Jean Baptiste, spy, 83, 

92, 231, 235, 240 and note, 265, 

293, 301 
Bellesme, 307 
Benoit, spy, S3, 87 and note, 88, 92- 

94 and note, 209, 231, 265, 286, 

287, 293, 300 
Bernard, Jacques Claude, 121, 149 
Bernard, Lieutenant, 128, 129 
Berthaut, Antoine Marie, 78 and 

note, 258, 259 
Bertrand, Charles Gombert, 228 
Beudon, 268 
Bic§tre prison, conspiracy in the, 

82-85, 187, 229, 239, 287, 288 
Billaud-Varenne, 50, 57, 59, 85, 

149-151, 289, 299, 304, 306 
Biron, the two women de, 167, 

171 and note 
Birth of Fouquier-Tinville, the, 30 
Bligny, Pierre Marie, 32, 232, 233 
Bohemia, The King of, 41 
Boisgelin, Madame de, 86 
Boispereuse, 231 
Botot-Dumesnil, Jacques Marie, 

115, 116, 227, 241 
Boucher, Auguste- Joseph, 166, 167, 

171, 292, 296 
Bougon, Charles Jacques, izz 
Bourdon, Leonard. 44, it8. 181, 

241, 260, 262 and note, 263 
Bourdon (of the Oise), 173, 2x5 
Bourgeois, 95 

Bourgueil Committee, 223 
Bourree-Corberon, 59 
Boutroue, Advocate, 283 
Boyaval, Pierre Joseph, spy, 83, 87 

and note, 88, 92, 93, 230-232. 235, 

265, 286, 293, 300 
Boyer-Brun, 74 



311 



312 



INDEX 



Bravet, Judge, 120, 273, 282 note 
Br^ard, Jean- Jacques, 148 and 

not-e 
Brienne, Comte Lomenie de (see 

Lomenie de Brienne) 
Brillon-Busse, Perronnet, 1 06 
Brissot, 59 
Brival, 53 
Brocket, 60, 160, 249, 266, 267, 

273, 282 note, 300 
Brothers of Fouquier-Tinville, the, 

31. 157 
Brunet, prison surgeon, 85, 264 
Budelot, 118, 134 
Buttin, a juror reported as being in 

two courts at the same time, 104 

and note 

Gallon, 53 

Cambon, deputy Public Prosecutor, 
XV. note, 64, 77, 80, 150, 256, 
275, 280, 282, 284, 285, 299 

Cambon's opening address at Fou- 
quier-Tinville's trial, 284, 285 

Camille Desmoulins, 33, 34 note, 
50, 57, 249, 250, 252, 253 

Camille Desmoulins, by Edouard 
Fleury, 33 

Campardon, xvii, 30, 33 

Canaple, Jean Fran9ois Esprit, 
188 

Conciergerie prison, Fouquier- 
Tinville in the, 212 

Canisy, Anne Marie Charlotte de 
Lomenie, 288 and note 

Carmelite prison, conspiracy in the, 
83, 94' 95> 208, 258, 264, 265 

Fouquier-Tinville in the, 129- 

135. 139-149 
Carnot, 149, 298 
Carra, 59 
Carrier, xviii., 152, 153, 162, 212 

and note, 215 
Castellanes, the, 167 
Cauchois, 124, 126-128 
Caz^s, Vadier's grudge against, 79 
Cazotte, Elisabeth, 34 
Cazotte, Nicolas, 34 
Chabot, 50, 67, 251 
Champagnier, 95 
Champlatreux, Mole de, 59 
Chandelier, 124-126 
Character of Fouquier-Tinville, the, 

xii., 33, 166, 167, 186, 189, 202, 

246, 247, 308 
Charry, Charlotte de Luppe, 

Countesse de, 178 note 



Ch&teau, Urbain Didier, 78, 91, 117, 
164, 179, 180, 236, 249, 260, 273, 
282 note, 296, 300 

Chaumette, 47, 57, 58, 173 

Chaumette, Madame, 57 

Chauveau-Lagarde, 64 

Chaux, 153 

Chavard, 264 

Chenier, Andre, poet, xiii, 98 

Chevagne, prisoners from, 107-109 

Children in the Conciergerie prison, 
258 

Children of Fouquier-Tinville, the, 
32, 33. 308, 309 

Chimay, Princesse de, 100, loi 

Chimney-sweep indicted as ex- 
nobles, 106 

Chretien, 230, 246, 267-270, 273, 282 
note, 299, 301 

Cl^re, Catherine, 42, 43 

Clermont-Tounerre, Comte de, 100, 

lOI 

Cloots, 51 

Cochefer, Christophe, 122 

Coffinhal, Judge, xii, xiii, xiv, 30, 
44, 75, 77, 97-100. 107, 112 
and note 113, 114, 117, 154, 168, 
188, 198, 199 and note, 200, 231, 
234. 235, 240, 242, 243, 245 

Collot d'Herbois, 68-75, 86, 131, 
149, 150, 200, 267, 289, 299, 304, 
306 

Committee of Pubhc Safety, xv, 
53. 55. 85, 118, 145, 147 

Committees of surveillance, 45 and 
note 

Conde, the surrender of, 43 

Conspiracies in prisons, 82-102, 158, 
159, 169, 186, 188, 193, 207-209, 
226, 228, 229, 231-233, 235, 239, 
240, 243, 253, 258, 260, 263-265, 
277, 278, 285-288, 293, 305 

Contat, Andre, 113, 247, 248 

Convention, a stormy session of 
the, 150 

Conviction of Fouquier-Tinville, 
the, 300 

Coquery, informer, 83, 96, 98, 102, 
239. 243, 265 

Corday, Charlotte, the trial of, 44, 
181 note 

Cornillier, Jean Louis, 31 

Comu, Charles, 262, 263 

Cornulier, Fran9ois Joseph, 90, 91, 
219, 220 

Cornulier, Madame, 91 

Costard, the woman, 74 



INDEX 



31: 



Courlet-Beaulop, 175 

Courner Republicain, the, 301 

Courtier, 128 

Courtois, 53 

Couthon, Georges, 75, 116, 117, 
120, 123, 198 and note, 200, 201 
and note, 214, 273, 304-306 

Crance, Dubois de, 147, 198 

Cressend, Advocate, 283, 299 

Criminal Tribunal, the, 36-38 

Crussol d'Amboise, Marquis de, 100 

Custine, 296 

Custines, General, 43 

Dantox, xii, xvi, 36, 37, 48, 50- 

61, 72, 146, 151, 164, 173-175, 

183, 207, 228, 248-250, 252-254, 

260, 261, 290, 293, 294, 305 
Danton's speech on a Criminal 

Tribunal, 36, 37 
Darmaing, Fran9ois, 79, 305 
Darmaing, Jean Baptiste, 189 
Darmaing, John Pierre Jerflme, 

79, 305 
David, 150, 176, 253, 254 
Debreaux, 125, 126 
Debregeas, Judge Jean, 275 
Debusne, Lieutenant Louis Francis, 

115, 187, 188 
Defence of Fouquier-Tinville, the, 

299, 300= 304-306, 308 
Degrouchette, Pierre Athanase 

Pepin, 96, 233 and note, 234 
Deguaigne, Pierre Urbain, 118, 134, 

246, 247 
Deisderichen, 50, 51 
Delaporte, Judge, 273, 282 note, 

iqg, 300 
Deli^ge, Judge Gabriel, 104, 109 

note, 120, 273, 282 note, 300 
Delignon, Gabriel, 74 
Delorme, 282 
Demay, 118, 134 
Depois, 307 

Derbez, Jacques, 99 KOte, 100 
Derozi^res, 128 
Desboisseaux, Charles Huant, 113, 

117, 122 note, 165, 173, 249 
Descaffe, 109 
Descharaps, Jean Robert, 85, 17S, 

187 
Desgrouettes, P6pin, 98, 102 
Desisnards, 96 
Desmorest, Pierre Fran9ois Etienne, 

122, 169, 189, 220, 221 
Desmoulins, Madame, 57, 58 
Devillas, Judge, 275 



Dhazard, Jean Baptiste Mathieu, 122 

" Dictatorship of Justice," the, 39 
and note 

Didier, xv and 7iote, 249, 265, 266, 
273, 2S2 note 

Didier-Thirion, 294 

Dietrich, Frederic. 260 and note 

Dillon, General Arthur, 57, 58 

Dobsen, Claude-Emmanuel, 152 
and note, 207, 212, 215, 234-236 

Do din, 89 

Domanget, Advocate, 283, 299, 300 

Donze-Verteuil, 38 

Douet, Jean Claude, 65 

Douet, Madame, 65 

Drunkards and madmen, Fouquier- 
Tinville, pitiless towards, 41, 42 

Dubois, 186 

Dubois-Crance, 268 

Duchesne, 91 

Ducis, letter to Fouquier-Tinville 
from the poet, 88 note __., 

Ducray, Anne, 186, 187 

Dufau, 264 
"^i^ufourny, Louis Pierre, 175 and 
note, 176 

Dumas, Rene Fran9ois, xii, xiii, 
47, 56, 61, 70-72, 75, 78, 81, 83, 
86, 90, 104, 105, 107, 109-111, 
114-116, 120, 123, 124, 132, 133, 
147, 149, 154, 168, 170, 180, 
182, 198, 200, 203, 226-228, 234, 
235, 238, 240, 243, 250, 254, 
271, 277, 279, 285, 297, 298, 
305, 306, 308 

Dumas's arrests in court, 109 

Dumesnil, Botot — 129 and note 

Dupaumier, Fran9ois, spy, 83, 
239, 240, 293, 299, 300 

Duperron, Anisson, 61 

Duplay, 73, 249, 272, 273, 2S2 note, 
283, 301 

Dupont, 109, 229 

Duprat, 281 

Dupre, Lucien Fran9ois, 259, 260 

Dupuy, saved by Fouquier-Tin- 
ville, 237 

Dusser, Pierre, 185 

East India Company, 50, 51 
Edelmann, Frederic, 140-142 
Edelmann, Louis. 140-142 
Education of Fouquier-Tinville, 

the, 30 
Eglantine, Fabre d', 59, 251 
Elizabeth, Madame, vii. 63-65, 287 
Espagnac, d', 251 



314 



INDEX 



Fabre, Jean, 38, 50, 120 

Fabricius (see Paris) 

Faro, 95, 96 

Father qf Fouquier-Tinville, the, 

30 and note 
Favart, Judge. 275 
Felix, Jean Baptiste Henry An- 

toine, 104, 109 ?iote, 120, 273, 

282 note, 29S 
Feral, Jean Pierre Victor, 176 
Ferrand, Captain, 271 and note 
Ferriere-Sauveboeuf, Louis Fran- 

9ois, 178. 179 
Feuilles, Jean, 124, 126, 128 
Feuquieres, the execution of the 

Marquise de, 257, 258, 292, 293 
Fleuriot {see Lescot-Fleuriot) 
Fleury, Comte de, the death of, 

213. 285 

letter to Dumas from, 81, 

82, 182 

Fleury, Edouard, 33 
Fleury, Madame Joly de, 97 
Fonteines-Bire, Marie Pierre Joseph, 

247 
Fontenay, Deput}^ Goupillen de, 

112 
Forestier, Judge, 164, 165, 177, 191, 

211, 275 note 
Forrestier, Jean Etienne, 121 
Foucault, Judge, 120, 273, 282 7iote, 

300 
Fouquier, Eloy, 30 and note, 182 
Fouquier, Emilie, Fran9ois, 32 
Fouquier, Genevieve Louise, 32 
Fouquier, Marie Adelaide, 32, 33 
Fouquier, Pierre Quentin. 32, 107 
Fouquier de Forest, Quentin, 31 
Fouquier d'Herouel, Pierre Eloi, 31 
Fouquier de Vauville, Charles 

Francois, 31 
Fouquier-Tinville, Antoine, Quen- 
tin, his attitude on the arrest of 

Dumas, no 

his attitude during his trial, 

291 

at the bar of the Convention, 

144-149 

— — the birth of, 30 

— the character of, xii, 33, 166, 

167, 186, 189, 202, 246, 308 

and the children in the Con- 

ciergerie prison, 258 

his conduct on the 9th of 

Thermidor, 11 4-1 18 

convicted and condemned, 

300 



Fouquier-Tinville, the defence of, 
299, 300, 304-306, 308 

denounced by Freron, 123 

the diligence of, 49, 195 

the education of, 30 

his first examination by Judge 

Forestier, 196-21 1 

his final examination by Judge 

Debregeas, 275-282 

the execution of, 303 

an indictment altered in 

court by, 105, 106 

an indictment granted against, 

275 

• Judicis's indictment against, 

272-274 

a director of the jury d' ac- 
cusation, 30, 33, 34, 242 

and the jurors, xiv, xv, 61 

and note, 165, 166, 169, 172-174, 
180, 186, 197, 198, 221, 246, 
249, 255, 260, 265-272, 277, 290, 
292, 294 

his last written words, 302 

Leblois's indictment against, 

212-215 

letter to Camille Desmoulins 

from, 23 

— — letter to the Committee of 
Public Safety from, 53 

letter to Dumas from, 70 

— — letter to Hanriot from, 47 

letter to the Popular Com- 
mission from, 159, 191 and 
note 

his letters from prison to his 

wife, 156-163 

- the marriage of, 32 

and Marie Antoinette's last 

letter, ix 

his memorials for his defence, 

130-135, 139-143 

his extraordinary memory, 

282 

mistook two prisoners for 

one, 62 

saved the Nantes prisoners, 

154, 180, 212, 237, 308 

the physical features of, 33 

in the Conciergerie prison, 

129-135' 212 

in the Hospice de I'Eveche 

prison, 211, 212 

in the Plessis-Egatite prison, 

195 

in the Sainte-Pelagie prison, 

151, 159, 161 



INDEX 



315 



Fouqnicr-Tinville, and prison spies, 
82-102, 158, 159, 169, 186, 188, 
193, 207, 209, 213, 226, 228-233, 
235. 239, 240, 243, 246, 253, 
258, 260, 263-265, 277, 278, 285- 
288, 293, 305, 306 

Procurator of the Commune 

of Paris, 35 

Public Prosecutor, 38 

the pubhc trial of, 282-301 

— refused to stop the executions 

on the 9th of Thermidor, 113, 169 

Robespierre denounced by, 55 

Fouquier-Tinville, Madame {see 

Ancourt, Henriette Gerard d') 
Fouquier-Tinville' s Printed Trial, 

164 
" Fouquier's store-house," 154, 195 
Fournees, 58 note 
Fran9ois, 206, 280 
Freron, Deputy, 53, 123, 159, 17S, 

200 
Freteau, Emmanuel Marie Michel 

Philppe, 40, 65, 79, 80, 174, 189, 

190, 210, 214 note, 294, 295 
Freys, the bankers, 50, 51 

Gaillard de la Ferriere, official 
advocate for Fouquier-Tinville, 

281 and note, 283, 299 
Gaillart-Lecart, Judge, 275, 283 
Ganney, 273, 282 note, 300, 301 
Garce, Captain, 307 
Garnier-Launay, Judge, 120, 273, 

282 note, 299, 300 
Gastrez, Nicolas, 182, 285 
Gauthier, 96, 147, 273, 282 note 
Gautier, 249 

Gayvernon, 147 

Geffroy, 68, 69 

Gency, Antoine, 121 

Giot, 117 

Girard, juror, 165, 273, 2S2 note, 

295, 300 
Girard, registrar's clerk, 70 
Girondins, the, xii, xvi 
Gobeau, Adrien Nicolas, 121 
Gobel, 58 

Gobert, Advocate, 283 
Gobertiere, Jean Placide, 182 
Godart, Judge Jean Fran9ois, 246, 

257, 260, 283 
Godeau, Judge, 275 
Gossiun, 53 
Goubaux. Pierre, 185 
Gouges, Olympe de, xvi 
Gouget-Deslandres, 95 



Gouillin, 153 

Goujon, 150 

Goupilleau (of Montaigu), 53 

Goureau, Citizeness, 173 

Goureau, Germain Andre, i88 

Goursault, 88 

Grammont, 87 note, 88, 93, 209 

Grand, Judge, 275, 283 

Grandmaison, 212 and note 

Granger, Jean Jacques, 196, 275 

note, 280 
Ganges, 211 
Gravier, 60 
Grebeauval, Nicolas, 44, 57, rii, 

112, 115, 185 
Grimaldi-Monaco, Ther^se Fran- 

9oise de Stamville, Princesse de, 

and Fouquier-Tinville, x, 100, 

loi, 112 
Gueneau, Advocate, 283, 299 
Guenet, Jean Marie, 122 
Guerin, Nicolas, 121 
Guffroy, Armand Benoit, iSo, 18 1, 

237 
Guillot and Valagnos, 83 and note 
Gusman, 50, 51 
Gu^'ard, Louis Severin, spy, 83, 163, 

265, 293, 301 

Hall of Equality, scene on the 

9th of Thermidor in the, 104- 

112 
Hally, Louis Charles, 175, 243 
Hanriot, Fran9ois, 46, 47, 60, 115, 

117, 120, 132, 168, 199, 241, 249, 

250, 269 
Harny, Judge, Si, 120, 273, 282 

note, 290, 297, 300 
Harville, General, 307 
Herbert, xiii., xvi, 47-49, 51, 58, 

59, 72, 146, 173, 176, 187, 242, 

249 

Herbert, Madame, 58 

Herman, Judge Armand Martial 
Joseph, xii, 44, 52-55. 57' 60-62, 
85, 151, 174, 22S, 235, 250, 254, 
290, 293, 294, 299, 300 

Henry, Barbe, 61 

Heron, 222, 224 and note, 225 

Hilliers, Baraguay d', 286 

Histoire Parlementaire, 164 

Historical Library of the City of 
Paris, The, 157 

Hoche, General, 147 

Horgne, Nicolas Eloi, 68 

Hospice de I'Eveche, Fouquier- 
Tinville in the, 211 and note 



3i6 



INDEX 



Indictment altered in court, an, 
105, 106, 275 

Indictments drawai by Fouquier- 
Tinville, 40, 48, 50, 64, 65, 77, 
loi, 105, 106, 123, 134, 140, 174, 
273. 275-278, 305, 306, 309 

Indictments against Fouquier-Tin- 
ville, 212-215, 272-274 

Jacobin Club, the, 49 note, 75, 

89, no, 121, 133, 158, 270 
Jacquet, Marie Therese Marchal, 

218 
Jarzoufflet, notary, 74 
Jeune Captive, 98 
Jobert (the Belgian), spy, 83, 96, 

109, 265 
Joly, Jean Louis, usher, 182, 183 
Joly, of the Theatre des Arts, 265 
Josse, Raymond, 164, 196, 211 
Jourdan, 281 
Jourdeuil, Didier, 295 
Judicial assassinations, xii and note 
Judicis, Public Prosecutor, 272-275, 

282 
Julien, Denis Michel, spy, 231, 235 
Jullienne, Jean Baptiste, 243, 263 
Juroi's, Fouquier-Tinville and the, 

xiv, XV, 61 and note, 165, 166, 169, 

172-174, 180, 186, 197, 198, 221, 

246, 249, 255, 260, 265-272, 277, 

290, 292, 294 
Jurors at Fouquier-Tinville's trial, 

the, 281, 283 and note 
Jury d' accusation, 29 and note, 33, 

34. 242 
Jury de jugement, 29 and note 

Kellerman, General, 147, 198 

Laboureau acquitted, 49 
Labrenne, S^bastien Alaroze, 107- 

109 
Lascoste, Elie, 150 
Lacroix, 50, 52, 54 
Lafayette, 29 
Lafleuterie, 161, 211, 281 
Laflotte, spy, 54, 57, 58, 253 
Lafond, Jean Baptiste, 106 
Laignelot, 53 

Lainville, Mathurin Denys, 241, 242 
La Jariette's dinner-party, 112 
Lakanal, 143 
Lambert, 109 
Lamporte, Judge, 120 
Lanchon, 269 
Langlois, 270 



Lanne, Herman's assistant, 84, 187, 
209, 228 and note, 288, -293, 299, 
300 

Lanne, Robespierre's agent, 149 

Laplace, Claude Nicolas, 185 

Lapparent, Deputy Cochose de, 112 

La Pointe, 96 

Laport, 249 

Laruelle, Captain, 271 and note 

Lauchct, Jean, 184 

Laurent, Denis Etienne, 121 

Lavalatte, Louis Jean Baptiste, 120 

Lavaux, President, 34 

Lavergne-Champlaurier, Colonel 
Louis Fran9ois de, 56, 57 

Lavergne, Madame de, 56, 57, 306 

Law of the 22nd of Prairial, the, 

75, 76 
Lebas, 116, 117, 123, 140, 198, 200 
Lebois, 194, 199 note, 212-215, 280 

and note 
Lebon, Joseph, 152 
Leborgne, 206 

Leclere, Jean Baptiste Nicolas, 257 
Lecoin, Pierre Vincent Augustin, 

120 
Lacointre (of Versailles), ix, 53, 

123, 132, 144, 148-152, 163 and 

note, 181, 215 
Lafiot, Jean-Alban, 144 and note 
Legendre, 49 note, 53, 151 
Legot, ix 
Legrand, 117 

Legris, 91 and yiote, 92, 124, 164 
Lenain, 231 
Lenotre, xvii 
Lepecheux, 96 
Lepeletier-Rosambo, 59 
Le Petit, Pierre Armand, 270 
Lerebours, 117 
Leroy, " Tenth of August," 249, 

273, 282 note, 286, 299, 300 
Lescot-Fleuriot, Jean Baptiste Ed- 

mond, xii, xiii, xv, 38, 115, 121, 

132, 168, 198, 200, 201 and note, 

241, 248 and note, 249, 251, 252 
Lesenne, turn-key of the Luxem- 

bourge, 87, 102, 210 note, 285 
Letter from Fouquier-Tinville to 

Camille Desmoulins, 33 

the Committee of Public 

Safety, 53 

Dumas, 70 

Hanriot, 47 

the National Convention, 156 

the Popular Commission, 159, 

191 and note 



INDEX 



;i7 



Letters from Fouquier-Tin ville, from 
prison, to his wife, 156-163 

from prisoners to Fourquier- 

Tinville, 66, 67 

Lhuillier, Jean Antoine, 107-109 
Liendon, Gilbert, 60, 64, 120, 122, 

168, 184, 273, 289, 296, 298, 306 
Liger, Vice-President, 218, 283, 

and note 
Limage, 124-126 
Lindet, Robert, 55 
Lohier, 91, 272, 273, 282 itote, 297, 

300 
Loisillier, Claude Fran9ois, 63 
Loizerolles, Fran9ois Simon, xiii, 

98, 99, 236, 237, 297 
Loizerolles, Jean Simon, executed 

in error, xiii, 98, 99, 236, 237, 297 
Lomenie, Athanase de, 63, 64 
Lomenie, Charles de, 63 
Lomenie, Fran9ois de. 63 
Lomenie, Martial de, 63 
Lomenie de Brienne, Comte, 287- 

2 89 
Louis (of the Bas Rhin), xvi, 130, 

143. 151 
Louis XVI., attempt to save, 72 

Will of, vii. 

Louvet, 117 
Lucille, 58 
Ludot, 53 

Lumiere, 165, 173, 249 

Luttier, 42 and note 

Luxembourg prison, conspiracy in 
the, 83, 85-88 and note, 92, 102, 
158, 159, 169, 186, 188, 193, 208, 
209, 231, 235, 253, 264, 265, 277, 
278, 285-287 

Lyons in insurrection, 44 

Machet-Velye, Pierre Charles, 87 

note 
" Magon conspiracy," the, 90, 91, 

220, 260 
Maillard, 269 
Maille, Louis Franfois de, 92, 96, 97, 

294, 297 
Maille, Vincomtesse de, 97, 306 
Maire, Judge Antoine Marie, 104, 

log note, iii, 120, 273, 282 note, 

298, 300 
Malarme, Bernard Jean Louis, 116, 

117, 227, 238, 257 
Malparti, Simon, 126 
Manini, Joseph, spy, 83, 96, 102, 

239. 2^3, 264, 265 
Manuel, 94, 95 



Manzuy, Marquis de, 70 

Marat, 269 

Marche, 109, 112 note 

Marie Antoinette, and de Batz, 72 

the execution of, vii, 173 

the indictment of, 41, 134 

the last letter of, vii-x 

the trial of, xii, xvi, 228 

Martel, 133 

Martin, Jean Frederic, 87, 88, 186 

Massieu, ix 

Masson, Judge, 74 

Maurin, Jean Dominique, executed 

in error, 86, 87, 232, 240, 277, 278, 

286, 306 
Maurin, Louis Clair, 105, 106 
Mayence, the capitulation of, 43 
Mayet, Madame de, executed in 

error, 97 and note 
Mazerat, Judge, 275 
Memorials for the defence of Fou- 

quier-Tinville, 131-135, 139-143, 

157-161, 284 
Menardiere, Mulot de la, and the 

Carmelite nuns, 89, 90 
Mercereau, Charles, 263, 264 
Merlin (of Douai), xvi, 44, 45, 53, 

143, 216 
Merlin (of Thionville), 53, 118. 132, 

134, 148, 149 
Meunier, spy, 87, 231 
Meursin, Isabelle Pigret de, 97 
Meynard-Mellet, Joseph, executed 

in error, 92, 96 
Michelot, 140 and note, 142 
Millet, 265 
Molin, Horace, 96 
Momoro, 49. 266 
Monaco, Princesse de (see Grinaldi- 

Monaco) 
Monet, Gabriel Nicolas, 173. 243, 

244 
Monnet of Strasburg, 140, 142 
Montane, Jacques-Bernard-Marie, 

38, 44, 181 and note, 182, 230, 307 
Montauban, conspiracy at, 271 
Montbrazon-Rohan, Louis Annand 

Constantine, 95 
Montmartre, the Abbess of, 97 
Montmorency, Louis de Laval, 96 
Moreau, Pierre Louis, 88 note 
Morin, Charles Sosthtoe, 278 
Morin, Denys, 278 
Morin, Jacques, 278 
Morin, Jean, 278 
Rlorin, Louis Clerc. 87, 232. 240, 

277. 278. 286 



3i8 



INDEX 



Morin, Nicolas, 278 

Morisans, attendants in the Tri- 
bunal refreshment-rooin, 115-117, 
226-228 

Morisson, Deputy, 112 

Mouchet, the King's architect, 307 

Mouchy, Madame, 185 

Mouchy, Marshal de Noailles-, 185 

Mury, 266 

Nantes, acquittal of prisoners from, 
153-158, 180, 212, 237, 308 

Narbonne-Pelet, Comtesse de, 100 

Natoire, Charles, painter, vii 

Naulin, Judge, 75, 273, 281, 282 
note, 299, 300 

Nicolas, 173 

Noailles ladies, the, 92 

Nuns sentenced to death, 89, 90, 
142 

Olivier-Despallieres, 62 

Orleans, Due d', xii 

Orleans witnesses in the Leonard 

Bourdon case, 241, 262, 263 
Ormesson, Lefebvre d", 59 
Osselin, Charles Nicolas, 17S and 

note, 187 
Oudart, President, 114 
Outlaws, seventy executed on one 

day, 122 

Pache, Mayor of Paris, xiii, 
249, 250 

Paniers, the, 305 

Panis, 53 

Pare, xii, 61 

Paris, Fran9ois Marie, 190, 191 

Paris, Nicolas Joseph (Fabricius), 
52, 54, 92, 124, 164 and note, 
171, 172, 178, 230, 248-256, 259, 
260, 279, 280, 290, 291, 294, 309 

Paris pendant la Revolution, 291 

Paris, the prisons of, 82 and note 

Pasquier, 59 

Payan, Claude Fran9ois, 115, 117, 
120, 132, 241 

Pelchet, Jean-Claude, 89 

Perard, Catherine, 74 

Perdry, Charles Louis, 225, 226 

Fire Duchesne, 47, 49 

Per^s case, the, 294-296, 306 , 

Pereyra, 51 

Perron, 76 

Pesme, registrar, 109 

Petit, 207 

Petit-Tressein, Ltonard, 188 



Philippeaux, 50, 249-252 

Pichard-Dupage, 62 

Pigeon, Alexandre Rosalie, 173 

Pigeot, 273, 282 note 

Pinard, 212 and note 

Pissis, Judge Charles Fran9ois 

Joseph, 218, 219, 246, 257, 260, 

263, 275 
Pitt's gold, 73 
Plessis prison, Fouquier-Tinville in 

the, 195, 211, 275 
PochoUe, Pierre Pomponne Amedee, 

144 and note 
Poincarre, 124, 126-128 
Porcher, 270 
Pouteau, 34 
Prevot, Suzanne, 68 
Prieur, 91, 246, 249, 273, 282 note, 

283, 296, 300 
Prisoners, Dumas wanted 160 

tried at once, 149 
Proly, 51 
Public Prosecutor, the duties and 

powers of the, 39-45. 50, 61, 66 
Puy de Verine case, the, 294, 298, 

306 

Qu^RROHEN, Madame, ioi 
Quetineau, Catherine, 47, 49, 176 
Quetineau, Colonel, 49 

Ra5nmond-Narbonne, Comtesse, 100 

Real, 96 

" Red Sliirts," the, 80, 81, 174. 285, 

289, 290 
Renaudin, 91, 165, 173, 249, 251, 

272, 273, 282 note, 283, 296. 

300 
Renault, Cecile, 73, 74, 80, 170, 174 
Retz, 298 and note 
Revolutionary Committees, 45 
Revolutionary Tribunal, the, 39-67, 

75, 76, 104-112, 120, 143, 149, 

150, 216 

the, reorganized, 216 

— — • scene on the 9th of Thermidor 

in the, 1 04-1 12 
Richard, 186 

Richard, Citizeness, 1S6, 206, 258 
Rignaud, Honore, letter to his wife 

from, 60 
Riot on the 9th of Thermidor, the, 

114 
Robespierre, Augustin Bon Joseph, 

the arrest of, 116, 117, 121, 132, 

200, before the Tribunal, 121, 

132 



Robespierre, Maximilien, ix, xiii, 
29, 30 and note, 44, 48, 55, 67, 
69-731. 75, 86, 88, 89, 91, no, 112, 
114-117, 120, 123, 124, 130-133, 
145-149, 154, 168, 171, 182, 192, 
198-201, 214, 234, 244, 248, 250, 
269, 272, 273, 302, 304-306 

the arrest of, 11 4-1 17 

before the Tribunal, 120 

Robin, 53 

Robinet, 96 

Robinet, Dr. 51 and note 

Roblatre, 94, 265 

Roland, Madame, xiii 

Ronsin, 47-49, 51, 173, 175, 249, 
269 

Roucher. Antoine, xiii, 98 

Royer, 88, 122 

Saint-Aignan, Madame de, 97 
Saint- Amaranthe, Madame de, 81 
Saint-Hilaire, J uremic, 106 
Saint-Just, Antoine, 39 7iote, 48, 

50, 53» 55> 58. 86, 116, 117, 121, 

123, 124, 130-132, 140, 149, 198, 

200, 201, 302, 304, 306 
Saint- Just, the arrest of, 116 
Saint-Lazare prison, conspiracy in 

the, 83, 96-100, 234, 264 
Fouquier-Tinville in the, 151, 

195 
Saint-Perns, the case of the, 90, 91, 

219, 220, 296, 297, 306 
Saint-Simon, Simeon de. Bishop of 

Agde, 100 
Salle, Gabriel Francois, 107-109 
Sallier, Guy Marie, 60, 244-246, 294 
Sallier, Henry Guy, executed in 

error, 60, 245, 294 
Samba t, Jean Baptiste, 174 
Sanson, the executioner, 62, 169 
Sanson, Charles Henri, 189 
Sanson, Captain Henri, 1S9 
Sanson, Nicolas Charles Gabriel, 1S9 
Sanson, Lieutenant Pierre Charles, 

189 
Santerre, 222 
Sarce, Captain, 237 
Saron, Bochart, de, 59 
Saugnier, Genevieve Dorothee, 32 
Scelle, 96 
Scellier, Judge Gabriel Toussaint, 

44, 75, 83, 88, III, 112, 115, 120, 

235, 273, 282 note, 299-301 
Schneider, Euloge, 140, 141 
Sechelles, Herault de, 50 
Seme, 96 



INDEX 319 

Senar, Gabriel Jerome, 221-225, 

244. 285 
Sers, Louis, xiv, 98 
Sezille, Antoine, 189, 190, 295 
Simon. Antoine, 53, 121 
Simond, Deputy Philibert, 57, 58 
Simonnct, lltienne, 113, 168, 221 
Soubise Palace, vii 
Soulier, 251 
Spies, police, S2-102, 158, 159, 169, 

186, 188, 193, 207, 209, 213, 226, 

228-233, 235> 239, 240, 243, 246, 

253, 258, 260, 263-265, 277, 278, 

285-28S, 293, 305. 306 
Strahl, Nicolas, 87 
Strasburg patriots, the case of the, 

139-142 
Subleyras, Pierre Noel, 85, 191, 

and note, 192 



Tabouillot, Claire, 61 

Tallien, 148, 26S 

Tampon, Judge Philippe Marie, 

114, 244 
Tavernier, Charles Nicolas, 164, 

168, 171, 172, 201, 290, 292 
Tavernier, Jean Baptiste, 177, 178 
Theot, Catherine, 133 and note 
Thery, officer of health, 49 
Thieuret-Grandpre, Jean Nicolas, 

66, 174, 175, 2S8, 289, 295 
Thirion, Didier, 183, 184 
Thomas, 296 
Thuriot, 118, 120, 134 
Tirrart, Nicolas, 165, 166 
Tomassin, 189 
Topino-Lebrun, Jean Baptiste, 52, 

173, 174, 246, 254 
Toulon surrendered to the English, 

44 
Toupin, the Breton, 76, 306 
Toutain, the brothei's, 280 and note 
Trey, 273, 2S3, 301 
Trial of Fouquier-Tinville, the, xii, 

XV note, xvi. xvii, 33, 52, 55, 60, 

62-64, 66, 77, 78, 80, 83, 85, 87, 

91, 92, 98-100, 165-301 
Trinchard, 54, 60, 165, 191 note, 246, 

254, 272 and note, 273, 282 note, 

299, 301 
Trippicr, Louis Joseph Georges, 

257' 25S 
Tronson - Ducoudra}-, Guillaume 

Alexandre, 24T and note 
Trudaines, Charles, Louis. 98 
Trudaines, Charles Michel, 98 
Turreau, 123 



320 



INDEX 



Vadier, XV, 56, 79, 146, 150-152, 
176, 179, 181, 189, 237, 240, 
251, 254, 305 

Valagnos, spy, 83, 187, 293, 300, 301 

Valaze, 276 

Valenciennes, the capitulation of, 

43 

Vauchelet, Antoine, 87, 231, 232, 

235 

Vergne, Pierre Nicolos, 229, 230 

Vergnhes, Jean Baptiste, his din- 
ner-party on the 9th of Thermi- 
dor, 112-114, 168, 240, 241, 
244 

Verine, Durand Puy de, 104, 105 

Vemey, Joseph, sp5% 83, 87, 88, 
96, 186, 209, 228, 229 and note, 
231, 232, 293 

Vernier, 300 

Viart, 175 

Viefville, 157 

Vilate, 165, 173, 249, 273, 282 note, 
283, 299, 300 

Villain, Advocate, 283 

Vincent, 47-49, 51, 249, 269 



Vingtrie, Lieutenant Bayard La, 

237 
Virolle, surgeon, 95 
Vitry, de, 162 

Vivier, Nicolas Fran9ois, 121 
Vonschriltz, Joseph Honore, 229 

and note, 287 
Voulland, Jean Henry, xv, 54, 56, 

117, 118, 146, 150, 151, 176, 

234, 240, 251, 254, 290 

Wailly, de, 43 
Wallon, xvii, 82 note 
Westerniann, General, 51, 173, 251 
Witnesses at Fouquier-Tinville's 

trial, the, 165-192, 218-273, 285- 

299 
Wives of Fouquier-Tinville, the, 32 
Wolf, Robert, 92, 164, 167-172, 

178, 259, 271, 279, 290, 291, 

305. 309 
Wouame, Jacques Louis Frederic, 



Yung, 140, 142 



^ FD- 89. 











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